Artist Ariana Page Russell has a condition called Dermatographia, which means she can temporarily, and painlessly, alter the surface of her skin by scratching it lightly. She illustrates herself, and then photographs the results.
(via Peculiar Beauty)
Mighty Girl 
I totally have that, too! I remember being able to write things on my legs as a kid and thought everyone could do it. I didn’t learn until last year that that’s not the case.
I have a rather large tattoo on my back that, when my skin is irritated, I can feel where the ink is due to the dermatographia.
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…I am drawing the story of how hard we tried…
(love her)
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Dang Mollie…you beat me to the Ani reference…
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Not sure how I feel about that art, but I know I must listen to Ani now.
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She’s lucky it’s painless! I have a colleague who has that condition, and for her it involved such incredible itching before they diagnosed her that she was borderline suicidal.
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interesting. and dare i admit it? also a bit creepy. I have mild dermatographia. Nothing as bold as what this girl can do. All of my tattoos are nearly constantly raised and tangible. When I have a bandaid, it causes the skin to swelland raise where ever the tape touches. but, I can’t even imagine aggravating it on purpose. Seems a little self-destructive maybe. I am probably looking at it wrong.
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I have that! I thought I was the only one. Leave it to someone else to come up with a non- embarrassing way to make this “affliction” cool…
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both hands rock. Thanks for always being the coolest.
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I have Dermatographia. For the most part I don’t remember I have it until I scratch. Then I feel like I’m walking around with a huge bulls eye where I just scratched. The skin gets raised and red, just like the artists’. The worst part is the itchiness. Most of the time I want to scrap my skin off. The odd part is that I developed this about 3 years ago. I guess I’m lucky I didn’t have it as a kid, or I’d be skinless by now.
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