Help with painting – mirrors, etc?

[Blight]

Hello everybody – does anybody have any techniques or recommendations in painting a PYO when you have limited arm movement?

I am going through some very bad flare ups since August last year, and my arms have fused closer to my torso so I can no longer ‘reach out’ and thus I cannot see very well what I am holding. I have unfinished PYOs I want to paint as well as other projects, but I don’t know what to do.

My family insists that able-bodied artists use mirrors and third-hand clip attachments to help them paint and draw.

Does anyone have any experience or feedback?

[Rachel]

I’m not sure I can help much, but I can suggest a lazy susan/turntable. That way, all you have to do is turn the turntable to get at the back of your piece. It won’t help much with having to reach up, but it’s something.

Hope your flare ups die down soon 🙁

[Blight]

Yeah, I use a Winston Cake turn table 🙂 That was before I lost more arm movement, and I haven’t tried it again yet.

[Heather]

Although I don’t have any personal experience here, an idea that occurred to me was using a small video camera–like the video app on a smartphone–set up to relay to a monitor placed where you could comfortably look at it. It would take some getting used to, but if the camera was attached to something so it didn’t move, and was focused on what you held in your hands, then it could relay a nice clean image to the monitor.

Of course a mirror could do this a lot more cheaply! But the angle of the mirror might prove difficult to work with, or difficult to set up so that it wasn’t in danger of falling over. The camera’s more flexible: you could set the camera in different places if you needed to look at the PYO from a higher or lower angle. You might even be able to zoom in on an area.

Best of luck to you!

[Setsunawolf]

My roomie’s dad is an artist. He has lost some of his vision, so he has his tv set up to recieve images from his iPad. The tv blows up the area enough that he can now see the area he is working in. I don’t know if it would help with limited arm movement, but it would allow you to paint at weird angles and be able to see what you are doing, so you have the piece in a manner more comfortable for you limited range of movement.

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[Blight]

Thanks! 😀 This really helps.

[Author]

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