That one critique about my lopsided cat doodle changed everything

Someone in this group told me my cats always looked like they were falling over because I was starting the head too far left on the page, so I started marking a center dot first. Now my sketches actually look balanced, has anyone else had a tiny tweak like that totally shift your drawing?

3 comments

3 Comments

vera_palmer16d ago

Did you read that blog post from the art teacher who said most beginners crowd everything to the left side of the paper? I think it's because we're right-handed and our arm naturally swings that way... I had the same problem with my landscapes where all the trees were leaning left. Started putting a tiny pencil dot in the middle of the page before I draw anything and it's like magic how everything just falls into place. Now I also do the same for faces, a dot right between the eyes so the nose and mouth don't drift off to one side. It's such a small thing but it really trains your eye to see the whole page before you start.

sandraflores16d ago

Wait, you put a dot between the eyes? That's genius actually but it also sounds like it would drive me crazy. I tried the center dot trick on a landscape once and spent twenty minutes erasing it because I kept staring at it instead of drawing. I have this thing where I need the page to feel blank or I get distracted. But now I'm wondering if that's why all my portraits look like they're trying to escape off the right side of the paper. Maybe I need to try it with a really really light pencil, like a 2H or something that barely shows.

grantmartinez4d ago

You know, that 2H idea might be the sweet spot. I've been doing this dot trick for about five years now, ever since I took a drawing class at the local community college. The instructor had us put a small cross in the center of the page before anything else, and it changed everything for me. I still remember the first portrait I did after that where the eyes actually looked straight at me instead of off to the right. But I agree, a regular pencil dot can be too dark and distracting. I started using a 2H myself and it's faint enough that I can leave it there the whole time without it bugging me.