Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

Speachless.

Great video!

... Wow...

Someone sent this to me via e-mail, but I didn't watch because I'm not interested in helicopters so it didn't look interesting... So from this I've learned: always add a summary of the video! Obviously the helicopter was not the main attraction here...

I wish I had such a good memory (I suck), this guy's amazing.

I mean, who wouldn't be absolutely amazed at his gift? An astounding memory--something the austistic mind seems to offer in lieu of an ability to socialize & interact with others (though Wiltshire does seem to do so, at least to some extent).

The thing I find fascinating however, is the media's need to measure the guy's work, not by creativity, but by hard-core factual information. I don't mean to, in any way, denigrate Wiltshire's gift for accuracy, but I'd much rather spend my time viewing the art of those "self-taught" artists, like Richard Burnside, who have no formal training but produce real soulful, imaginative interpretations of the world around them instead of photographic reproductions.

But, as they say, each to their own.

i've read that autisitc people don't process faces properly, hence the social problems-- i wonder how he'd do at drawing, say, the participants at a dinner party he was allowed to observe for a few minutes.

this is fantastic.

here's his website:
http://www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk/index.aspx

People with severe autism, from what I understand, can't read the subtley of human expression. So maybe he could draw a face and get all the proportions right just like it were a machine, but it wouldn't have much expression to it. He wouldn't be able to read the expression or know what the expression meant.

This too, is probably why he seldom draws people---because he's constantly frustrated by what he's supposed to see in people, while with buildings and machines he sees pretty much exactly what everyone else sees.

He's got more than just a talent for reproducing what he sees photographically---these are compositions with balance and form. These aren't expressionistic images, and autism wouldn't lend itself well to something like that. Also with severe autism people don't relate to invention or fictions. It only makes sense to them if it's something factual or real, so that's why, I imagine, he tends to stick strictly to things he observes. Whats interesting is, despite this, the ammount of invention that does exist in these images.

Poke around on the guy's site and you'll find that he does do people....

"Another popular misconception is that autistic artistic savants solely draw buildings and objects and are not interested in depicting the human form - let alone creating caricatures. Stephen, and artists such as Roy Wenzel whose work was included in his "Not a camera" exhibition, have proved this theory wrong."
http://www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk/caricatures.aspx

Well, I stand corrected. Wish there were more and larger representatives from of his portraits and caricatures on the site though.

I'm still pretty sure that this kind of autism makes it difficult for the person to "read' expressions.

Well, I stand corrected. Wish there were more and larger representatives from of his portraits and caricatures on the site though.

I'm still pretty sure that this kind of autism makes it difficult for the person to "read' expressions.

I agree with Elwood, and there is a disturbing tone to this piece..."in THIS TEST", "Stephen HAS ONLY 3 DAYS!" and this relentless search for inaccuracies seems institutionally oppressive...I hope he enjoys drawing this way, and isn't being exploited.

I got Blackstock's book in the mail...it is so full of personality and sincerity.

I remember seeing him on 20/20 back in the day. It's still a trip to see him go at it.

While I am as great a critic of the media as anyone, I think that they are using the limit and the hunt for accuracy as dramatic tools to impress the audience with how impressive the feat is.

It is truly incredible how powerful the human mind can be. I have heard two theories about autistic savants and autism in general. The first is that autistic savants (supposedly a small percent or autistic people) are able to achieve such talents because the areas of the mind that are usually used to function in the world that we live in are not overwhelming the areas that have the talent. It is hypothesized that if we could turn off parts of our brain temporarily with, say an electrical interfering field, we would be able to be temporarily savantic (if that is a word).

The other idea is that autistic people are not so much disabled as they are an alternate mode of human existence. In effect, our attitude to autistic people is like the attitude of a hypothetical civilization of blind people who feel sorry for those who can not find their way in the dark yet feel that street lights are a waste of tax dollars. I think that much more research is needed because some profound autistics seem to be completely unable to communicate (despite the claims of facilitated communication proponents) but there have also been people who have been "written off" who later are able to engage with the world.

Just as many insights into human neurology have been gained by those with damaged brains, so to might a great deal be learned about human nature by observing and engaging with those who are divergent from the norm.

Cool! He's amazing.

It's called Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) for a reason. Each characteristic is different from person to person. We all know people who have no people skills. It's the person who says what they think without realizing it might hurt someone's feelings because this person is purely analytical and not an emotional being.

There are some autistic persons who would look at you as if you're a piece of furniture just because they do not see you as a living, thinking being with thoughts and feelings of your own. Then there are others who are very in tuned to others and quite empathetic to what you feel and think.

It comes down to the simple task of reading non verbal body language. Pure and simple, you have to care in general to get that, or not!

What living with autism has taught me is to not jump to conclusions about others or judge because I don't know their particular disability - not all are physically, readily seen.

For those who don't get the enormity of what this young man is capable of I can say it is truly your loss. For those of us who look at this and are amazed by his work, you get that being different from "normal" people is not such a bad thing after all. As with normal people, autism is not an excuse for why you can't accomplish something, it's just harder to find what they're good at to help develop them into functional members of society (if possible).

Mother nature sure does work in mysterious ways, where a path is blocked she finds a way around it. How it manifest in each person is it's own issue to be resolved for all of us.