Can you email me a picture of my eye?

A short story of how an eye doctor check-up to led to custom wall art.

A short story of how an eye doctor check-up led to wall art.

Last month I went to the eye doctor for my annual check-up. I had the option of an air puff test or a high-resolution picture of my eye taken. The latter ran me $39 more. Averse from up-sells, I almost immediately declined. Right before I did, I asked if they could send me the pictures afterward. Clearly a driver of additional revenue, the staff member said “yes” instinctive to someone in a sales role.

A picture of my left eye. Not copyrighted — eye encourage others to use the image if helpful.

I started browsing the web for what to do with a dope… eye picture. I found a sketch by Vikecsi who took an eyeball and made it more active and pupil popping. This black and white design was my first of three tastes of inspiration.

Uploading the sketch to Google Images to find similar matches, I discovered a colorized version of the design. Loving the idea that this could be a piece of art, I decided to hire a graphic designer. I went to the site UpWork.com and was able to purchase 5 hours of a designer’s time for $40 per hour. (Note: I chose a pricier per hour rate for a graphic designer with over 2,000 hours logged. You could have gone down to $10 per hour.)

While waiting 3 days for a design to be created, I moved on to thinking about where to put the graphic. A big fan of wall-art — usually a canvas picture or collage— this fit with my style. I found a picture of someone’s eye that they framed. While I appreciated the framing style, the surrealism was too much for my preferences.

If you put a picture of your eye on your wall, does that necessitate that you’re a narcissist?

UpWork.com has a screen capture tool that takes pictures as the freelance worker is on the clock. Screenshots below show the work in progress.

Each 10 minute period is tracked for mouse and keyboard activity.

Wow! When I saw the final product from the graphic designer I was astonished. With only the images you’ve seen as the inspiration, here’s the final deliverable.

Inspired by nature, can you see the school of fish, astronaut, flowers blooming, jellyfish, birds, the galaxy, and veins?

The final product of my eye on my wall as a custom wall art graphic!

Conclusion & Take-aways

Little did I know that a routine check-up at the eye doctor would lead to a $300 wall art story. It wouldn’t be an education blog post without the classic three take-aways from this story:

1. Gig work is on the rise. As Professor Jerry Davis writes in a piece about job creation in the 21st century:

“Employment has shifted from the career, to the job, to the task.” — Jerry Davis

2. If you haven’t hired a remote worker to complete a task for you, try it. Today. Spend $20 or $50 to learn how it works. Visit Fiverr.com, Upwork.com or Freeeup.com - you can tell them I sent you.

3. Even creativity can be outsourced today! Start breaking down your to-do list into discrete tasks. If you have a time consuming task that requires a low level of background knowledge, that is the ideal item to find someone else to help you with. This is the same idea as the the 4 Hour Workweek preaching delegation to remote workers.