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Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Portrait Artist on LSD (not me though)

[Video: text appears explaining that in 1955 a portrait artist was given a dose of LSD and some drawing supplies, then drew a series of sketches of the doctor over the course of several hours. The black & white drawings then appear in succession for the rest of the video. The first is simple and realistic with cross-hatching and a three-quarter profile view. Then they appear successively cubist; some recognizable profiles appear to be vibrating and composed of expressive shapes like a Kandinsky painting; some are simple, expressive contours; one is completely abstract and most like a Kandinsky, O'Keefe or early abstract expressionist painting; and gradually they become more realistic again.]

4 comments:

Ariel said...

This is fascinating! And I don't believe that the artist isn't you (ha!). My favorite was the drawing at 5 hours and 45 minutes in.

Very cool.

Ciana Pullen said...

My favorite drawing that I totally didn't do is 2:35. Or maybe 4:25. I wonder what that says about us.

bc said...

Interesting that this artist was so elegantly expressive when conventionality was removed (his first and last drawings looked like back-of-magazine ads for drawing courses in the fifties.)Maybe creativity requires knocking out the frontal lobe activity for a while.
bc

Ciana Pullen said...

Lol, thanks for that responsible motherly advice!