Hearing Colors

Hey everyone!

In my illustration class I'm working on a collaborative project with some classmates. We're working on a comic about two people with Synesthesia and the friendship that developes from it. Synesthesia is a neurological condition where some of your senses will be crossed and interact with each other in ways that they normally would not.

For the sake of the class we're only doing priliminary work for it but I'm really enjoying it so far. It's really growing on me since I have synesthesia myself and its' allowing me to share my experiences with others. I've been wanting to do some paintings of what I 'see' when listening to music so this assignment allowed me to play with how we would show it in the comic. In our story there is a girl who can 'hear colors' like I can, and a guy who can 'taste words.' I did a few small paintings today of what I see with certain songs as preliminary work for figuring out how to show this in the comic.

This painting is what I see when listening to 'Derezzed' by Daft Punk from the new Tron OST. It was done in gouache and acrylics.


This song is 'Faraway' by Apocalyptica from their album 'Apocalyptica.' It was done in watercolor with a little bit of gouache and acrylic.

This painting is 'Battery' by Metallica and the San Francisco Philharmonic Orchestra from Metalica's S&M album.

I'll be posting more work from this project as it progresses.