The Art of the Horizontal Flip

You ever had one of those moments where you drew something, it looked fine, but you looked at it the next day and OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT–

Part of learning art is developing your sense of seeing, not just in observing good art, but also in how you work with your sight actively throughout the process. When you’re drawing something, especially from imagination, you’ll start to make some sketches and forms on the page, and as you do that your brain naturally gets used to what it sees. And when you take a break and look at it a day later, you’re quite literally looking at it with fresh eyes and start to notice things that are wrong.

But sleeping on art means that it can take a while to spot what’s wrong with your drawings. And let’s be real, many of us don’t have the patience to do that all the time and just want to share some quick doodles. At this point in the video you’re probably realizing there’s a secret: yep! Give it a flip!

Literally, flip your art horizontally. Every digital art app has a way to do this, and I recommend learning that and giving it a quick shortcut. And if you’re drawing on paper, hold it up to a bright light flipped over! I actually do this all the time. Flipping your art forces your brain to see it in a way it hasn’t before and you’ll immediately see parts that are wrong. Maybe it’s leaning way too much to the side, or the perspective of a character is bonkers. You can even continue to work on the flipped version if you want, or flip back. The more frequently you do this, the more quickly you’ll spot problems and can fix them.

I’ve heard people say “but my art isn’t meant to be flipped! it makes it look wrong!” Well guess what buddy, if it looks wrong when flipped, it probably looks wrong in general. Take the chance to fix it and get comfy flipping your art around a lot. Yeah, it might feel uncomfortable at first, but you’ll be glad you did in the end.

The next time you’re working on a drawing, try this out. Build it into your habits. It’ll improve your art and your process a ton. See you on the flip side!