A Painter's Eye Movements: A Study of Eye and Hand Movement during Portrait Drawing

The mental processes that allow an artist to transform visual images--e.g. those of his model--into a picture on the canvas are not easily studied. The authors report work measuring the eye and hand movements of a single artist, chosen for his detailed and realistic portraits produced from life. His eye fixations when painting or drawing were of twice the duration of those when he was not painting and also quite different from those of novice artists. His eye-hand coordination pattern also showed differences from that of novices, being more temporally consistent. This preliminary work suggests that detailed and quantitative analysis of a working artist is feasible and will illuminate the process of artistic creation.