I have a weird condition called Aphantasia, which doesn't allow me to picture images in my head. I can recall things I've seen but they only show for a fraction of a second and can never focus on them. They are always blurry, disappear too fast or simply change. I can only describe it as trying to catch fish with an oar. It has never bothered me, I only discovered it was a thing about 2 years ago and it has never stopped me from doing anything. Not even drawing.
When I first came to London my English was... well, atrocious. I was determined to learn as fast as I could so I didn't use my mother tongue for anything, not even thinking. My thoughts couldn't find an easy way out so they found a voice in images I saw around me. Some of them were fascinating and I started copying them in my diary. The results amazed me and I drew every day, never knowing how the final piece would look like.
Drawing has helped me in my process in several ways:
I don't keep my drawings, I always give them away. This letting go of them makes drawing a sort of meditation for me. I find joy in doing but don't feel attached to the outcome and not knowing how they will look like turns the process into a discovery were I am not driving, I simply let things happen.
I don't draw deliberately, only when I I feel the need of it. It is not a hobby or a means to make extra money (I don't do commissions). If an image gets stuck in my head then I know I have to take the pencils.
Whenever I am drawing my sense of time disappears and I enter this feeling of flow. I am here and now. Only this line in my head, only this dot. Since I have to copy images (either what I'm seeing or a picture) there is no thought, no planning. I see and I draw, that's all.
There is no practising or turning this into a skill. I never took classes and I I have learned by doing, but the focus has never been the technical side. I know that by being present, patient and doing it with an open heart I will draw whatever it is that I need to express. There is no pride in it, for there is no accomplishment. I am interested in drawing and the feeling that comes with it, that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing beacuse it calls to me.
Here is a link to some of my drawings in the Creativity section of the website:
https://www.julio-delgado.kundalinicollective.org
I have attached some other drawings to this post in case you want to see more.
These are really phenomenal, Julio. There is a real gentleness and sacredness that comes off the drawings. x
I love your drawings Julio...they are very special. I also love the way you just let them go...like Tibetan monks who make beautiful sand mandalas and then destroy them....glad you don't destroy the drawings but give them away instead! As you describe the whole act of drawing seems to become a meditation....and you seem to channel a spiritual essence into what you produce. Love it.
Julio, do you draw straight from imagination or do you use images that you find in the world/internet?
Love your work Julio, thank you for posting. Your creative process is fascinating! I appreciate the fact that you distance yourself from your work after making them. The same thing happened to me, though I wonder if this may change in the future?
These are beautiful! What a gift. I can feel the energy. Thanks so much for sharing them, and for sharing how they arrive! I love how our minds are so different and unique. I can draw from looking at things but for me the flow comes from drawing from my imagination, and when Iām in total flow it comes from the divine and I always have to stop after and say thank you to the divine because I was only a channel. These times feel like such holy moments, actually more recently it happens when I paint more than draw š