Does my mind automatically convert peoples entire faces into symbols?

[Vhan Juju]

Ok, so I have been doing bridgeman, other studies, really takeing time with my faces lateley, and I realised something.

There is a persons face, you see IT everyday, but then you really look at thier face, and all of the sudden!

"WHOA"

After stareing for a bit, its like you have never really seen thier face before!

You kinda step back and go "have I really ever seen your face before"

So, does my mind automatically make symbols, and other images to help me reckignise people when I see them, without actually takeing the time to process all the information about that persons face that I see?

Or maybe my brain highlights certian aspects of the face, like eyes, and turns those into more easly readable information, (like symbols) for teh benifit of, erm...just reading emotions?

=shrug=

Just really curious!
thanks
-Vj

[Lennybird]

Betty Edwards discusses this in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - I'm reading it now. Its exercises are designed to force you not to draw from stored symbols in your left hemisphere, but to draw what you actually see from your right. That aside, yeah I think you're mind does create symbols for a person's face. Imagine a human face - just think it. What do you see? eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, forehead, hair, e.t.c... - but does it resemble absolutely anyone? For me, no.

That's why I'm reading this book - and to be honest, it has helped a great deal, though my sketchbook may not show it I'll vouche for it
= )

[Vhan Juju]

I keep finding it odd, that the nose is a really, erm..ulgy part of the face, and you think the face would look better without it, but that just isn't true! Lol, wierd stuff. You know. (when your talking about imageing a persons face)

But thanks for replying Lenny.

I wonder if I should do exersies were I leave out parts of the face, lips, nose, eyes, and just draw everything else...hmm...

[B u r l]

From time to time when I'm looking at a person, i've noticed that i'm thinking of the skin rapped around their muscles and skull, and how their muscles are contracting and relaxing as they speak to me, and how that stretches and relaxes the skin. :\ I usually find myself stairing, trying to accuratley make out the lines that make up the form of the head or body, and how that would look on paper. It's interesting to really look at a person's facial features because like you said, they look like a different person when you do. Talk about living blindly.

[•Lindsay•]

The better I know someones face, the harder it is for me to draw them accurately. I draw my perception of them as a person, instead of their real appearance. If I consider someone crazy, their portrait ends up looking crazy. Even when their actual face is normal.

It's hard for me to fight against this. If I was a better artist I could probably catch myself before making that kind of mistake, but sometimes I don't notice until the person I'm drawing has already left.

I think this happens to most people. The more you know someone, the more you literally see them as the person they are. Have you ever looked at someone else's yearbook and listened to the owner point out who the best looking kids are? The people who are considered the most attractive can look plain to someone who has never been to that high school. But if you transfered to that high school, the force of their personality might overshadow their minor physical flaws.

[Vhan Juju]

WOW! guess I'm not the only one who gots this, really just the possibility that...

...the more I know someone, the more I see my own mental perceptions of them, and not actually what I "really" see?

so, it really is possible for two people to see (see meaning, phicially see visually) the same person in two different ways?

It must be very, very subtle, but does it really exist? Does any of the e-books cover this?

[HunterKiller_]

Haha, I had the nose thing, too.

I used to think that the nose was on the bottom of the list of facial features, but now I realize what a wonderful construction it is.

[Elwell]

Ok, so I have been doing bridgeman, other studies, really takeing time with my faces lateley, and I realised something.

There is a persons face, you see IT everyday, but then you really look at thier face, and all of the sudden!

"WHOA"

After stareing for a bit, its like you have never really seen thier face before!

You kinda step back and go "have I really ever seen your face before"

So, does my mind automatically make symbols, and other images to help me reckignise people when I see them, without actually takeing the time to process all the information about that persons face that I see?

Or maybe my brain highlights certian aspects of the face, like eyes, and turns those into more easly readable information, (like symbols) for teh benifit of, erm...just reading emotions?

Congratulations, you are starting to see like an artist. As you've found, it can be disorienting, even traumatic at first, discovering that you haven't really been seeing the world around you, even the things you thought you knew intimately. It's kind of like putting on the sunglasses from They Live! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live).

[Vhan Juju]

Well, thanks for you congrats Elwell! I'll admit that it is a little unsettleing, but really I'm just trying to avoid stareing at people and makeing them uncomfortable lol.

But I got to admit that it makes drawing people a lot more interesting too.