It took a stranger at a park bench in Portland to point it out. She asked if I was doing 'alien portraits on purpose' and I laughed until I looked at my last 40 sketches. Every single one had the eyes sitting at like 70 percent up the head, not the usual halfway mark. Now I check by flipping the paper upside down before I call anything done, has anyone else had a blind spot like that with their own art?
Last year my after-midnight sketches were pure chaos, all shaky lines and smudges. Then I cleaned out my desk and put everything in a little drawer from IKEA, and suddenly my 3AM stuff looks way more confident. It's not the supplies, it's having them within reach instead of digging through a pile for 10 minutes. Has anyone else noticed their late night art changes just from fixing your setup?
Was doing a quick sketch of a lamp on my desk around midnight and it hit me. I always put the dark side closest to the light source because my brain said shadow = near the light. My friend looked at it and laughed, said the shadow should be on the far side. Checked a real lamp and yeah, total facepalm. Has anyone else had that moment where a basic rule finally clicks after hundreds of tries?
At 2am last night I was sketching a raccoon stealing a slice of pizza on my iPad and passed out with my face on the screen. When I woke up, the stylus had traced some weird spiral across the whole canvas and my cheek added a giant smudge that looks like a second raccoon. I called my buddy Dave in Austin and he said it's the best thing I've ever drawn, so now it's my new phone wallpaper. Has anyone else had accidental body-part art turn out better than their actual attempts?
Got tired of wasting printer paper on drunk drawings. Bought one of those expensive spiral sketchbooks with thick paper. First night I used it, I dropped coffee on it and the page crinkled. Now I only draw in it when I'm actually awake, because I don't want to ruin it. Anyone else have a fancy art supply that makes you behave better?
I grabbed a cracked Bic from my junk drawer instead of my usual micron pens, and the way it skipped and bled made this terrible cat look way funnier than anything I've drawn in months, has anyone else leaned into bad tools on purpose just to shake up your art?
I kept messing up faces and proportions in every half asleep doodle, so I caved and bought a cheap tracing light box off Amazon last week. For 18 bucks it's got a surprisingly even glow, and I used it to trace a photo of my dog onto paper, then colored the disaster version by hand. The final result actually looks like a dog instead of a furry potato, which is a first for me at 2am. Has anyone else spent a small amount on a tool that just clicks with your worst art?
Tried both during a 3 AM insomnia session last Tuesday and the charcoal made everything look like a crime scene photo, so I'm curious if anyone else sticks with pencil just to keep their 2 AM art from scaring them in the morning?
Went to the all night diner off I-75 last Tuesday, someone left a napkin sketch of a raccoon in a tie on the counter. I tried to copy it half asleep and mine came out looking like a stern accountant who just found a typo. Anyone else had a doodle morph into a weirdly specific office worker?
I got so tired of my fine brushes turning into mush after one use that I grabbed my nephew's $8 Crayola watercolor set last Tuesday. The tiny plastic brush was perfect for those stupid little window panes and it actually made my ugly house drawing look almost intentional. Problem is, the paint is super weak, so I had to layer it like 5 times. Anyone else ever raid a kids craft bin for tools that kind of work but not really?
I used to do those late night marker drawings and everything came out looking flat. My buddy glanced at one and said "your shadows look like dirt smudges, not shadows." That hit me harder than it should have. So I started using a purple or blue for darker areas instead of just black. Made a huge difference in like two drawings. Has anyone else had one random critique that just clicked?
I used to think charcoal drawings were just smudgy garbage, but last Tuesday I saw this older dude at a park sketch a dog in like 4 minutes using a stick and his actual thumb. He said the mess IS the drawing, and that clicked for me. Now my midnight doodles are all charcoal blobs and I honestly like them more than my clean pen stuff. Anyone else flip on a medium they used to hate?
My sketchbook habit used to be pretty solid until about a month ago I started nodding off mid-line. Last Tuesday I decided to draw my cat Luna from memory while half asleep. The eyes ended up on different sides of the head and the tail turned into a squiggly line that looked like spaghetti. Woke up the next morning and nearly threw the page away, but my roommate laughed so hard she took a photo of it. Does anyone else keep these awful pieces around just to prove how tired you were, or do you trash them right away?
Last Tuesday around 2am I was sketching this weird octopus tax collector thing and had to decide between my chunky Copic marker and a fineliner. I went with the thick marker because the shape felt bold, but the ink bled through three pages and stuck them together like glue. By morning I had one ruined sketchbook and a masterpiece that looked like a wet napkin. Has anyone else ruined a whole page trying to fix a bleed with white-out?
Back in 2009 I'd spend 40 minutes erasing every grey streak on a 2 a.m. sketch, but these days I just smear my finger through it and call it shading, has anyone else given up on clean lines for speed?
I was at my desk at like 2 in the morning last week doodling my cat Mittens and I thought I was making art. Then I looked at it the next day and it's just a lumpy oval with whiskers. It's so bad it's funny now and I'm actually starting to like it for how stupid it looks. Has anyone else had a late-night drawing turn into something totally different?
I got it from that website that always pops up in ads, you know the one where they show a perfect sunset over a lake. The canvas was printed wrong, the colors were all off, and after 4 hours I had this blob that looked like a muddy parking lot. My wife said it was 'abstract'. I called it a waste of a Saturday. Anyone else get burned by those overpriced kits?
I keep seeing people post sketches where the eyes are way too far apart or the nose is just missing and I'm like come on. Last night I spent an hour on a cat drawing and it looked more like a squashed bean than anything alive. Anyone else notice how easy it is to mess up proportions when you're half asleep or is it just me?
I was trying to fix a horrible sunset background I drew at 2 in the morning and nothing was blending right. So I just started smudging the colors together randomly with my mouse and it actually looked like a cloudy sky. Has anyone else accidentally found a shortcut like that when you're half asleep?
I was half asleep at 2am and had to choose between drawing my cat sleeping or just scribbling a blob, so I went with the blob (which ended up looking like a lumpy potato with stick legs). Has anyone else had a late night drawing that came out way worse than you expected?
For years I was that person who swore by pencil and paper. I thought drawing on a tablet was just tracing photos and pressing undo a million times. Then my friend let me borrow her old Wacom for a week and I gave it a real shot. It took me like 4 hours to make a simple cat face that looked okay. But by day 3 I was actually having fun with layers and colors I never use. Now I'm not saying it's better but it's definitely its own skill. Anyone else come around on something they were dead wrong about?
I was half asleep last night and tried to sketch my cat Luna sleeping on the couch, but somehow the eyes ended up on the side of its head and the tail looks like a worm. The result is this lumpy blob that could be a vegetable or a weird bug, not a cat at all. Has anyone else woken up to find their late night art looks totally cursed the next morning?
Used to obsess over getting the shading perfect in every sketch, but after that jellyfish incident I just started using one pen and letting the lines look weird, which actually made my late-night drawings way more fun to look at the next morning - anyone else found that ditching the eraser changes everything?
I came home from a tree removal job last week totally beat, but I couldn't sleep. So I grabbed a ballpoint pen and a torn envelope and decided to sketch my cat, Mittens, who was passed out on the couch. The nose ended up way too big and I gave him three eyes by accident because I kept nodding off. When I looked at it in the morning, I swear it looked more like a mangled sweet potato than any living creature. The shading is just random scribbles and one ear is floating an inch away from his head. I stuck it on the fridge and my wife laughed so hard she nearly choked on her coffee. Anyone else ever wake up to a masterpiece that's actually just a train wreck? Because I think this is my new favorite thing I've ever drawn.
I was up way too late last night and tried to sketch a flamingo from memory for my 'midnight masterpiece' collection lmao. Ended up with this thing that has a crooked beak, one leg bending the wrong way, and a body that looks more like a deflated balloon. Has anyone else ever drawn an animal so bad it made you question your own hand-eye coordination?