This resource has three sections:
- Seeing to Remember
- Storing an Image in Memory
- Translating Memories into Drawings
ArtSpeak
Forensic art: Artistic techniques used by police departments and investigative agencies in the identification, apprehension, and/or conviction of wanted or missing persons.
Perception: The manner in which you understand, and process sensory information.
Cognitive interview: A forensic interviewing technique that uses visualization strategies to enable eyewitnesses and victims to accurately remember surroundings, people, and/or information about a crime.
Visualization: The formation of a visual image in the mind.
Air-drawing: A memory enhancement technique for remembering images. A pen, pencil, finger, or your vision is used to follow the contours of a potential drawing subject while you mentally describe every detail with words.
You add a whole new dimension to your artistic skills when you can draw from your memory.
Think about the pleasures of being able to draw anywhere and anytime, knowing that your drawing subject is safely tucked away inside your mind.
Seeing to Remember
If you watch television or movies, you have probably seen a sketch artist's drawing of a criminal suspect.
A sketch artist (also called a forensic artist) translates the memories of eyewitnesses and victims into drawings.
Memory enhancement techniques are integral to accessing the information required to create drawings based on someone else's memory.
Surprisingly, these same techniques also help artists learn how to remember potential drawing subjects.
Your five senses (seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, and tasting) feed sensory information to your memory.
"Seeing" employs both vision and perception to trigger strong sensory memories. You need to accurately see a potential subject before you can attempt to draw it from memory.
Factors such as time, viewpoint, distance, and clarity influence your memory of what you see.
As an Aside
During my 25-year career (1978-2003) as a forensic artist, I was often asked, "How do you draw from someone else's memory?" Simple answer: "It's not much different than drawing from your own memory." Visualization techniques facilitate the gathering of credible information by attempting to bring all five senses into the memory enhancement process. Throughout this initial visualization stage of a cognitive interview, I would write detailed notes. Then, I continuously referred to these notes while the victim or eyewitness helped me create a composite drawing.
Time
Taking time to carefully observe your subject is integral to remembering visual information.
If you're texting a friend while running to catch a bus, you probably won't remember much about a clown sitting on the steps of an art gallery.
However, if you're paying attention to your surroundings, you may see the clown and possibly store enough information in your memory to later draw her.
As an Aside
A study published in Applied Cognitive Psychology on drawing and memory revealed that participants who doodled while they listened to recorded names of people and places remembered 29% more of what they heard than those who weren't doodling.
Viewpoint
You can retain more information about anything you want to remember when you view it from all sides. Examine a frontal view of a suspect (oops - meant to say "subject") in Figure 1.
Check out another mug shot of the same subject in profile (Figure 2). From this viewpoint, the shape of the head is somewhat unexpected.
Try to imagine what this criminal mastermind looks like from behind.
Distance
When a subject is far away, you can't see it very well. On the other hand, if you are too close, you may not be able to see its entire shape and form.
Ideally, you need to examine a subject from both far away and close-up. In Figure 3, Wesley the Maltese is too far away to see much in the way of details.
You're more likely to see and remember enough information to sketch his face and body if he's a little closer (Figure 4).
If Wesley jumped into your lap and began licking your nose, you may remember feeling the wispy hairs of his mustache on your face and seeing the shine in his eyes.
However, if this was the only time you saw him, you may have no memory of his head or body.
Figure 5 demonstrates what you need to see and remember to draw his adorable face.
Clarity
Lighting conditions, weather, and air pollutants affect how well or how poorly you see a potential subject. Early morning or late evening may not provide enough light to see an outdoor subject clearly.
In addition, if a strong light source such as a sunrise or sunset is behind a subject, you may see only its silhouette rather than details (Figure 6).
Subjects may appear blurry on a foggy, snowy, or rainy day (Figure 7).
Under ideal lighting conditions, you may be able to remember enough information to create a sketch (Figure 8).
Storing an Image in Memory
Several people can view the exact same subject under identical conditions, and yet each person may remember a completely different image.
A perceived visual image of a subject may not be the same as how that subject looks in reality. For instance, if you believe that the branches of all trees are straight, then when you retrieve a memory of a specific tree, you may draw it with straight branches.
Even when you see a subject correctly, your brain may record images based on your current state of mind as well as memories of and experiences with similar subjects. Forensic artists often refer to these phenomenons of perception as memory pollution.
Images that you see can be remembered both verbally and visually. A strong visual image can be translated into a narrative and vice versa.
For example, a verbal description of a suspect, based on an eyewitness's visual memory, is provided to a forensic artist, who then translates that verbal description back into an image - a sketch of the suspect.
As an Aside
As a forensic artist, I was once called to a bank that had been robbed by a male suspect without a mask.
I created sketches with each of the three witnesses who had clearly seen him close-up.
When the detectives and I later met up, we compared the three drawings. The three men looked very different from one another - they didn't even look like cousins.
Yet, each witness had clearly remembered and described in great detail the brightly-colored, cartoon Band-Aid across his nose.
Challenge!
Find a familiar object. Look at it from three different distances:
- The other side of the room
- The middle of the room
- Very close to your face
Note how much detail you can see from each distance.
Translating Memories into Drawings
Your mind records everything you see in much the same way as a video recorder. Trying to retrieve these memories and translate them into drawings is often a challenge.
A technique called visualization is used by both forensic artists and forensic hypnotists to help individuals remember valuable information about a crime scene and/or a suspect.
Tip!
Try air drawing a potential drawing subject to remember visual information.
Simply follow the contours of a subject with your eyes (or a finger) while mentally describing every detail with words.
You then have both a visual and verbal memory.
The following process might help you use visualization to draw from your own memory:
1.Sit comfortably in a quiet place with no distractions.
2.Relax your body and mind, and close your eyes.
3.Warm up your brain by first trying to visualize a blue sky with clouds or a simple object.
4.Try to remember where you were and what you were doing before you saw the subject.
5.Think about your surroundings - what the weather was like outside, if you could hear any sounds, or if there were any memorable smells.
6.Pretend your mind is a video recorder and "play back" these few minutes.
7.When you reach the point in your memory where you see the object, pretend to press the "pause" button and freeze the mental image.
8.With your eyes still closed, mentally trace the outline and details of the object in your mind.
9.Draw the subject in your memory as best you can.
Your memory of an experience is strongest immediately after the experience has occurred.
Within minutes, you begin to forget some information, so it's important to render a rough sketch of a potential subject as soon as possible. If you wait more than 24 hours, the image becomes increasingly difficult to remember.
Getting past the influences of perception and accurately remembering what you see takes lots of time and practice.
Making sketches from real life every day adds a wealth of accurate visual information to your memory. As you become more knowledgeable about various subjects, you get better at drawing images from your memory.
When you can draw on your memory, you are ready to try your hand at creating new and exciting drawings from your imagination.
Tip!
You can sometimes find forgotten information by doing a little research. Imagine, for instance, that you're walking through a park when you spot the most adorable Maltese ever.
draw and quickly realize that you are missing some important details. Time for a little detective work!
Each dog of this breed looks slightly different, but the basic characteristics and anatomy are very similar. By researching Maltese dogs online or in books, you can draw the one you saw more accurately.
As an Aside
As an expert in artistic facial anatomy, I am aware of the generic rules of adult facial proportions.
A few years ago, I worked with a witness for several hours and ended up with a sketch of the ugliest man I had ever seen.
The placement of his facial features (totally based on the witness's description) broke every single rule of facial proportions. I figured this was one suspect who would never be caught.
A few weeks later, I was at that same police station when an excited detective approached me to say, "We caught the guy in the sketch you did last month! Would you like to see his mug shot?"
Well, I was totally shocked by the photo - he looked exactly like my drawing. Needless to say, I was thrilled (and relieved) that I hadn't allowed my knowledge of facial proportions to influence the drawing.