Drawing what our mouths cannot say

For some, it's easier to communicate with a drawing than it is with talking.

It is a rainy afternoon but people are queuing outside a Mayfair gallery to buy books and prints and get them signed by the artist.

The gallery's owner, Stephen Wiltshire, is world famous for his incredibly detailed pen and ink drawings of buildings and cityscapes.

Sitting at a table inside, he smiles shyly as people shower him with compliments.

"Cities are so beautiful," he says in a soft voice. "The skylines. . . the high rise buildings."

Stephen's speech is slow and hesitant. His sister Annette is by his side to encourage him and to clarify some of the questions he is being asked.

At the age of three, Stephen was diagnosed with autism and Annette says he found all human contact difficult - especially after their father Colvin's death in a motorcycle accident. Stephen didn't speak when he started primary school.

"He was the quiet pupil in the corner of the class - he didn't say anything or interact with anyone," she says. "He just kept his head down scribbling on paper."

Every week the children were taken to visit landmarks of the capital such as Big Ben and the Tower of London. Back in the classroom they were asked to draw what they had seen. Stephen's teachers quickly realised his work was extraordinarily advanced for his age and that he loved to draw. So they played a trick on him.

Stephen Wiltshire's drawing of the 2014 exhibition of ceramic poppies at the Tower of London

The Houses of Parliament and the London Eye, by Stephen Wiltshire

"They took away his pen and paper and tried to make him ask for them back," says Annette. "He was so frustrated - he needed them so badly that he was forced to say 'pen' and 'paper '. Those were his first words."

Soon people outside the school started noticing Stephen's gift and aged eight he landed his first commission - a sketch of Salisbury Cathedral for the former Prime Minister Edward Heath.

Stephen went from a silent, withdrawn child to an artist whose time-lapse videos go viral on YouTube and whose works sell for six-figure sums. Cityscapes are his trademark - like a 10m-long panoramic memory drawing of Tokyo produced after a single helicopter ride over the Japanese capital.

That was a decade ago and since then Stephen has produced aerial illustrations of several cities inspired by the "bird's eye view" he gets while flying over a metropolis.

The draughtsmanship is assured, the perspective masterful. But how does he manage to capture so much detail from the elaborate cornices of buildings, to shadows cast by the sun to the correct number of windows on a skyscraper? How does he keep all that in his head?

"I make a quick sketch from the air in my sketch pad," he replies with a slight shrug of the shoulders.

"You go back to the hotel don't you?" says Annette. "And then you have the night to memorise what you have sketched and prepare."

Stephen's gift for drawing has long fascinated neurologists and psychologists.

Travelling around the world with her brother, Annette has noticed how his gift evokes strong and unexpected responses in people.

"A crowd of 150,000 came to welcome him in Singapore," she recalls. "When they saw him drawing some were cheering, others were crying. Some turned up at dawn to wait for him and I will never forget this old man who was there every single day. No matter how big the crowd was, he always managed to push his way to the front row to get close to Stephen. I will never forget that old man's face."

Despite his autism, Stephen is a powerful communicator - his eloquence is in his pen.

In some situations drawing is used to express what's too hard to say in words.

Source: bbc.co.uk

By Lucy Ash

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