glaucoma 2

This time, I closed my left eye, and with charcoal on a broken ground of green and blue sketched in the shapes of the living room before me as seen with my right. Then with indian ink, pen and brush emphasised parts of the picture to give it a little movement.  The fish like shape in the middle is my glaucomis companion - the challenge is to paint what I cannot see. Impossible, of course, but worth attempting if just for the interest I get from it - My uncle, Norman Sutcliffe, and illustrator and best of blokes, working in the first part of the last century would encourage me by telling me to paint what I see - I suppose what I am doing here is painting what my brain registers as missing from what I see. 

To all - may we have a peaceful New Year ,,, for a treat!

Glaucoma in painting

My glaucoma affects the sight in my right eye more than in the left.  I notice it only if I close my left eye that otherwise compensates for the missing section of my sight.  The picture I have been working on recently cheats so that into an imaginary autumn landscape with scudding leaves there is too the shape of the blind spot marked out in grey. This I left it as in the original charcoal, fixed, so it doen't smudge, because its graininess is very like the real thing.  Surprise suprise -  I connect this to a passage in Shakespeare when, in The Merchant of Venice, Young Launcelot, about to tease his father, says 'Oh, heavens, this is my true-begotten father who, being more than sand-blind, high-gravel-blind, knows me not (2.2.31).

The thoughts on Hamlet like Topsy keep growing, but I think is now almost ready to be decked out in better English than I can manage, which means I shall talk it over with my partner, Philippa who's eye and ear for a good phrase matches the cat's pyjams...