Drawing…It’s all about testing my memory

My assignment this week was to draw the image of a stranger from memory. I had to look at the stranger’s picture for a minute after finding it from the Internet and come up with the sketch. Here’s the original picture I found: 

 And here is what I came up with from drawing:  

I am not an artist, so please do not judge. J

The stranger I drew had some remarkable features. The technique I used to remember his image was association with familiar images and colors. The man on the picture has a well-defined face. He also has a long face, just like my father. The shape of his face was something I remembered because it reminded me of my dad. This stranger also has thick eyebrows, I do not. Thinking of this contrast helped me remember that aspect of the stranger’s face, especially because I wish I had thicker brows. 

For the things I did not remember or notice: I  remembered that the stranger was wearing a colored shirt which I thought was green. I associated the color of his shirt with the UNT color and that helped me remember the shirt he was wearing. Anyway, his shirt looks more turquoise than green. Also, I did not pay attention to the background of the stranger’s picture.  It was blue with some letters going across it. I also did not know that there were buttons on the collar of the man’s shirt, even though I they black and actually quite visible. I actually thought he had more buttons running down the front of his shirt. This forgetfulness of mine can be explained by this National Geographic video that explains how selective the brain is. We therefore are unable to remember information that our brains do not deem valuable after 20 seconds.

References

National Geographic. (n.d.). National geographic: Test your brain episode 3 - memory. Retrieved from http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xq2gon_national-geographic-test-your-brain-episode-3-memory_shortfilms