Icons in Practice

Comment Before I begin today’s post, I would like to comment on my own post from yesterday. The icon pair that I chose for ‘frustration’ elicits the feeling of ‘stop’ instead of that of frustration. I copy yesterday’s final icon picture below, for convenience. I believe that the angle of the hand makes all the […]

Frustration

An icon for frustration How does one develop an icon for frustration? I took the picture below years ago, at the moment my younger brother expressed extreme frustration with our older brother. Mike is very low functioning, autistic and nonverbal. It is not obvious if he even recognizes his own family. A silhouette of my […]

Paired Gestures

Stand-alone gestures Gestures can sometimes stand on their own. For instance, a ‘stop’ icon does not have to be paired with anything to make sense. However, as one can see in the photograph from which yesterday’s ‘stop’ icon was abstracted, a widened field of view adds a context which may alter or change the sense […]

‘Stop’ Icon Development

Incremental Progress For about two months now, I have been concentrating on ways to express my feelings with visual media. My blog did not start out that way. In fact, my original mission was to discuss autism from the point of view of a sibling, along with side conversations about neuroscience, philosophy, ethics and mental […]

Hands in Context

I am still interested in creating an atlas of hand gestures as related to my older brother and me. If you are visiting my blog for the first time, my older brother is autistic, very low functioning and has never spoken.  Images of hands have figured noticeably in my photographs of him.  Using a short […]

Narrative or Portrayal of Feelings?

Blog mission revisited My original mission was to blog about my relationship with my older autistic brother as well as neuroscience, philosophy, medical ethics and mental health treatment history. During the first 11 months of this blog (starting in January 2013), I recapped my efforts to understand Mike over the years. After the visit to […]

Barrier Series with Gestures

I was reading my 1929 copy of Clive Bell’s book Since Cézanne. Since it is in the public domain, I have an electronic copy too. However, I don’t think I would have stumbled upon a gem of a quote without thumbing through my print copy. Art critics’ responsibilities In the introductory essay, Bell, an English art critic, […]

Gestures as Icons

I used the gesture study published yesterday, as a starting point for today’s post. I took my own advice and started thinking about what my brother’s hand positions represented to me instead of trying to divine what he meant by them. For those of you reading my blog for the first time, my older brother is autistic and profoundly […]

Gesture Study

I overwhelmed myself yesterday, trying to catalog images of hands to incorporate into a “Hand Atlas“.  My first mistake was trying to draw small images of hands with latex masking fluid. First of all, the scale was too small; secondly, I don’t know if it is possible to draw delicately with this medium. I almost […]

Progress – Hand Atlas

I was hoping to have a chart-like presentation of different hand positions typically displayed by my autistic brother, ready for today’s post. However, I ran into some problems. Stage 1 – latex masking fluid Did you ever try drawing with a glob of liquid rubber at the end of a brush handle? It’s even harder […]

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