Line-Drawing = Precursor to Wire Figure

Somebody asked me how I got the first imagination to create

a Wire Figure like “St. Lucia”.

In fact there is a Spanish painting (by Zulbaran ?) of a woman who was hit

by the Good’s revelation.  The design or her posture was after this painting.

But to make it as a wire figure there was a long accumulation of practice to

configure human body into simple contour lines.

(It was not came from Manga drawings)  😀

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Those line-Drawings were created around 1993, soon after my court case

for which I had to sell most of my professional cameras and lenses =

it’s mean I became out of business.  (I fought this case up to the Court of

Appeal without lawyer, since I didn’t know I could get Legal Aide and

didn’t need to sell livelihood. = demerit of  DIY.  Ha ha ha.   🙂 )

Out of business mean I got plenty time but not much money.  

So, I did quite a lots of drawings which costs virtually nothing.

But before this, there was an interesting discussion with

other photographers

“How we can figure out dark faint image or just a contour to

particular object ?”

“How do we know a curved one line to such as woman’s front

body or back ?”

“Is it a pattern recognition or intuitive creativity

to make-up an image ?”

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—– so, I experimented to draw the line, simplified to the limit,

no longer recognizable to any meaningful figure.  

Or figured out the minimum, still able to convey the meaning.

And found that the same line could be seen in the different meaning

or can be seen as other part of the figure.

—– strange discovery was that even if it is utterly illogical,

as long as it contain the recognizable parts, our brain

accepts it as what we normally understand as a pattern.

May be because our brain is not necessary seeing the things

(or drawing) as it is, but reconfigure it as we understand.  

Our thinking or even first-hand perception is never free

but always “Wishful” !

= We see the things as what we wants to see.

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So, the drawing above center, [Two headed woman] = our brain

accepts it as “One woman is facing front with her left hand swing back

and other woman stretching her right hand front” =

our brain never reject it all together with a reason of its 

irrationality,  but try to process each woman independently.  

Because, we are not familiar with two headed woman, the brain

ignore the conflict and stick to see it is two different woman

just happen to be in the same place, while try to think,

“She twisted her front body completely backward”.

—– So, it is a joint operation of our eyes and the brain =

the eye’s detailed vision is only the centre of our vision, about 20 degree

and the peripheral area is rather vague. = very similar phenomenon to 

selectively listen the voice among the other noise.   

(Please test it yourself  🙂 )

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The drawing right was my challenge (in the matter of imagination,

not a drawing or painting skill :-)) to Bosch who showed surrealistic

image in the hell, still never go to this kind of illogical confusion. 😀

—– Even Dalli couldn’t go beyond a crèche.

(May be from a religious restriction, God’s creation shouldn’t have

such freak.) If you see only a part of this drawing while hiding the rest,

your eyes accepts the image. —– One line could be a line of the hand

but it is also the line of the thigh etc.

Our brain ignore the part which is not taking part to configure one

image. ( —– And this is  what all about the Rorschach Inkblot Test =

pick up the pattern in a part, and make up familiar  image in the brain.)

= this function creates a monster from a vague image of a tree

in the woods. = we only pick-up the element which is enough to

configure monster and disregards the rests so, we see a monster.  

Seeing is believing — is it ?

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Some of you might see the top drawing as a kind of Hindu Goddess,

hence may be accept this image straight.   It looks strange though,

if you hide one side, it may not so strange. —– (She supposedly

sitting on a lotus flower though, I have not finished it yet.)

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With those (in fact 300 of ) drawings behind, to conceive and

configure the wire figure was not far away.  

And to draw 300 drawings in the same approach, it has to

get somewhere. = Zen would say

“Even rain drops can curve a rock ” 🙂

—– Drawing was done and each line was adjusted by way of copying

it on the light-box again and again until it become perfect (well, sort of)

so that those 300 are not 300 different images but lots of slightly

different same pictures.  = It was a process of step by step Kaizen.

If I were a real master of drawing, I could have done perfect drawing

straight though I wasn’t, I had to take slower process.

— May be draw a perfect circle looks much more like a Zen Master

though, I needed to know human perception, not a holy pretence. 🙂

And this approach gave me an opportunity to analyze how

we feel different if the line was slightly different or

the same line could be seen in different context. 

So, it was really interesting and a fun. 😀

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