Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 11.

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Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease: 46.5
Drawspace Curriculum 2.2.R15 - 6 Pages and 8 Illustrations

Drawing on
Your Memory
Techniques for seeing and remembering potential
subjects so you can translate your
memories into drawings

This tutorial has three sections:

Seeing to Remember

ArtSpeak

Storing an Image in Memory

Translating Memories into Drawings
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 artists 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 elses memory.

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.

ISBN: 978-1-927539-43-9
Copyright 2013 Drawspace Publishing and Brenda Hoddinott. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transferred, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
electronic, digital, mechanical, recording, photographing, photocopying, or otherwise, without the purchase of a licence from drawspace.com or the prior written consent of Brenda Hoddinott and Drawspace Publishing.

Drawspace Curriculum 2.2.R15

As an Aside
During my 25-year career (1978-2003) as a forensic
artist, I was often asked, How do you draw from
someone elses memory? Simple answer: Its 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 meticulously
detailed notes. Then, I continuously referred to these
notes while the victim or eyewitness helped me
create a composite drawing.

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.

Time
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 werent doodling.

Taking time to carefully observe your

subject is integral to remembering
visual information. If youre texting
a friend while running to catch
the subway, you probably wont
remember much about a clown
sitting on the steps of the art gallery.
However, if youre walking
and paying attention to your
surroundings, you may see the
clown and possibly store enough
information in your memory to later
draw her.

Figure 1

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 mugshot of the
same subject in profile (Figure 2).
From this viewpoint, the shape of the
head is somewhat unexpected.

ISBN: 978-1-927539-43-9
Copyright 2013 Drawspace Publishing and Brenda Hoddinott. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transferred, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
electronic, digital, mechanical, recording, photographing, photocopying, or otherwise, without the purchase of a licence from drawspace.com or the prior written consent of Brenda Hoddinott and Drawspace Publishing.

Drawspace Curriculum 2.2.R15

Try to imagine what this criminal

mastermind looks like from
behind.

Figure 2

Distance
When a subject is far away, you
cant 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.
Figure 4

Figure 3

Youre more likely to see and

remember enough information to
sketch his face and body if hes a little
closer (Figure 4).

ISBN: 978-1-927539-43-9
Copyright 2013 Drawspace Publishing and Brenda Hoddinott. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transferred, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
electronic, digital, mechanical, recording, photographing, photocopying, or otherwise, without the purchase of a licence from drawspace.com or the prior written consent of Brenda Hoddinott and Drawspace Publishing.

Drawspace Curriculum 2.2.R15

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.
Figure 5

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 didnt even look like
cousins.
Yet, each witness had clearly
remembered and described
in great detail the brightlycolored, cartoon Band-Aid
across his nose.

Clarity
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.

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).
ISBN: 978-1-927539-43-9

Copyright 2013 Drawspace Publishing and Brenda Hoddinott. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transferred, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
electronic, digital, mechanical, recording, photographing, photocopying, or otherwise, without the purchase of a licence from drawspace.com or the prior written consent of Brenda Hoddinott and Drawspace Publishing.

Drawspace Curriculum 2.2.R15

Figure 6

Figure 7

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 eyewitnesss visual memory, is provided to a forensic artist, who then
translates that verbal description back into an imagea sketch of the suspect.

Translating Memories
into Drawings

Tip!

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.

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.

ISBN: 978-1-927539-43-9
Copyright 2013 Drawspace Publishing and Brenda Hoddinott. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transferred, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
electronic, digital, mechanical, recording, photographing, photocopying, or otherwise, without the purchase of a licence from drawspace.com or the prior written consent of Brenda Hoddinott and Drawspace Publishing.

Drawspace Curriculum 2.2.R15

These steps can help you use visualization to

draw from your memory:
1. Sit comfortably in a quiet place with no
distractions. Relax your body and mind,
and close your eyes.
2. Warm up your brain by first trying to
visualize a blue sky with clouds or a
simple object.
3. Try to remember where you were and
what you were doing before you saw the
subject. Think about your surroundings
what the weather was like outside, if
you could hear any sounds, or if there
were any memorable smells. Pretend
your mind is a video recorder and play
back these few minutes.

Tip!
You can sometimes find forgotten
information by doing a little research.
Imagine, for instance, that youre
walking through a park when you spot
the most adorable Maltese ever. You
store tons of information into memory so
you can draw her when you get home.
At home, you begin to 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.

4. When you reach the point in your

memory where you see the object,
pretend to press the pause button and
freeze the mental image.
5. With your eyes still closed, mentally
trace the outline and details of the object
in your mind.
Your memory of an experience is strongest
immediately after the experience has occurred.
Within minutes, you begin to forget some
information, so its 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.

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 based on the witnesss
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
photohe looked exactly like my
drawing. Needless to say, I was thrilled
(and relieved) that I hadnt allowed
my knowledge of facial proportions to
influence the drawing.

ISBN: 978-1-927539-43-9
Copyright 2013 Drawspace Publishing and Brenda Hoddinott. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transferred, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
electronic, digital, mechanical, recording, photographing, photocopying, or otherwise, without the purchase of a licence from drawspace.com or the prior written consent of Brenda Hoddinott and Drawspace Publishing.