Drew a face that looked like a melted candle so I traced it backwards and it fixed everything

I was doodling around 2am after a long day of painting baseboards and my portrait came out looking like a wax figure left in a car. The eyes were uneven and the mouth was sliding off the side. On a whim I flipped my sketchbook over and traced the lines in reverse order, basically drawing the face from right to left. Somehow it brought everything back into proportion and I actually ended up with something recognizable. Has anyone else tried weird mirror tricks to fix a drawing that went off the rails?

2 comments

2 Comments

young.emma2d ago

And with charcoal no less, which is basically impossible to fix once it's down. I used to flip my drawings upside down to catch proportion issues, but never thought to trace them backwards. Your mileage may vary but that's a genuinely clever trick for retraining your brain.

seanperry2d ago

So you're telling me that instead of fixing the drawing, you just made it learn how to draw itself backwards? That's like saying you fixed a burnt toast by eating it from the bottom up. I guess it's a good trick if your brain gets confused by left-to-right but can handle right-to-left no problem. Personally I'd just turn the paper around and pretend it was intentional, like some kind of abstract melting portrait. But hey, whatever works for you at 2am when you're seeing double from paint fumes. Just don't try tracing your signature backwards to fix a bad check.