Thread by @abigbat

oh hey, now that I'm just working for myself and some amazing clients, I feel comfortable talking about a big old thing which has plagued me throughout my life and career as an artist and art director:

I am colourblind.

Like, really quite colourblind.

I essentially cannot separate green and yellow, and other colour combos like purple and blue and green and brown are a bloody nightmare.

When I was a kid at school I got yelled at by teachers for messing this stuff up and I've been incredibly nervous about it ever since.

I was able to get around this by going REAL HARD on my study of colour theory: learning what colours work together, treating it in a purely scientific way rather than trusting my eyes and spending time exploring how colours react in every medium I worked with.

I have now got to a point where it doesn't affect me TOO much in my day to day work, and bizarrely I think colour use has actually become a strength of mine, but it does occasionally cause issues and I need to get people to check my work for me a lot.

Anyway, this isn't a brag:

I just want you to know that hey, if you are colourblind and think that a career in art is impossible because of this silly disability YOU CAN TOTALLY DO IT. It's going to be tough, you're going to have to learn a lot of stuff and work incredibly hard, but you'll get there ❤️

I should add, I am EXTREMELY anxious even posting about this stuff because my idiot brain is worried people won't hire me now, but I know that isn't really true. I am quite good at painting these days and I will overcome anything with time and practice. You can do this too.

Well then. Apparently this resonated with people.

I am so touched by all of your kind words; it seems there are quite a few of us out there, trying to make it work, and I am so happy to hear from you all. Sharing this was quite hard, but now I know it was worth it. Thank you ♥️