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Magic: The Gathering Artist Paul Scott Canavan Says That He's Colorblind


Magic: The Gathering artists bring the characters and worlds of the popular trading card game to life in their stunning artworks so it's pretty incredible that one of them is still able to produce wonderful illustrations despite being colorblind.

Magic artist Paul Scott Canavan has taken it to Twitter to let fans know that he's colorblind.

"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," Canavan wrote on his Twitter account. "Like, really quite colourblind."

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Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Canavan talked about how he can't distinguish certain colors and how he studied color theory:

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.


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Credit: Wizards of the Coast
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It's inspiring to read how Canavan worked past his colorblindness by studying color theory hard, and as you can see in his artworks above, blue and orange are used prominently on his works because they can easily be distinguished by any kind of colorblindness.

Related: White in Magic: The Gathering Throne of Eldraine Will Do Something 'It's Never Done Before'

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