Mirror problem
 

I have just come to the realization that I have a major problem seeing. I recently did a self portrait. The problem I'm having is that when I flip the image on my computer, I can see flaws in the proportions and placement of my features. It doesn't look the same to me.

I'm going to post the image and the reverse. I'm curious if anybody can tell which is the original, and which is the mirrored image.

Here's one.

Here's another.

If anybody knows how I can train myself to fix this problem, please let me know.

Nathan,

I think it is the first one that is the original. The flaws you are talking about...Is it the ears and eyes?

Nathan
 

There is nothing wrong with your sight Nathan. No face is totally symmetric. Ease up on yourself. Okay?

Jean

I think the problem is that when you view the flipped image, you see it with "new eyes". Take a master painting and flip it, and it will look funny to you (if the masterwork is a familiar one).

Holding a piece of art up to a mirror has the same effect, which is a trick known to masters over the centuries. It's not just you. Everyone has the same "problem" to some extent. One of the great masters (Can't remember which) said to "hold your painting up to a mirror to see its ugliness" (His words. Not mine)

The proof of this comes when you post the two versions of the image the way you did. Most people can't tell which is the original orientation. You perception is prejudiced by having looked at the original so intently for a long time.

Another way to see the work with new eyes is to set it aside for a few days, then look at it again. I wish I had done that with the self portraits I posted. They were quick drawings that looked fine to me before I set them aside for a while. Unfortunately, I had already posted them. ;C

Nathan, I think the second one is the original.

I base this response on the slightly over defined egg shape that is created in the second image, while I see...less of a flow or rhythm in the first image.

I will go no further until I find that which is which. If I am correct, I'll have more to say. If I'm wrong - I don't want to stick my neck out any further! ;)

Peggy

(By the way, they are both very close. Anything I say is of the smallest consequence. If you are worrying about the difference being obvious, it is not.)

Lefty or righty
 

Hi Peggy,

I picked the first one as the original. I am wondering if it has to do whether if one is right handed or left handed. Hmm.

Are you left handed by any chance?

The first one
 

The original is the first one. The only test was to see if other people view it as I do. This has been a good exercise for me.

I am right handed. And, another thing I heard is that people have a "strong" eye. The same as you have a "strong" hand or foot. So, this means you're seeing more with one eye than the other. There is a way to test it, so it is true. My "strong" eye is my right, just like my hand.

I want to be able to train my eye to see these problems. And for now, I'm gonna do this exercise of flipping it on my computer, or a mirror, to see any flaws I might have missed.

Another thing that concerned me was that when you do a portrait of yourself from a mirror, the image is flipped. That is how you see yourself, but that is not how other people see you. For example, I have a "cowlick?" on my right side. In the portrait, it's on my left. I don't know how big of an issue that is, though.

The specific flaws I seen when flipping it were one of my eyes is off kilter, my nose is off-center, and my mouth could use a slight adjustment. Maybe, my lack of noticing was from staring at it too long from the same viewpoint.

Josef,

Yup. I'm left handed.

Peggy

Nathan -

Nice drawing, and I think what you're bringing up is very important: after spending time on a drawing, the artist needs "tricks" to help break that hypnotic hold the piece has on our perceptions, so we can see it objectively, to work through basic drawing and compositional weaknesses.

Viewing it in a mirror, or upside down, or in a digital photograph all help. And ideally, these negotiations are made early in the process, not days into the final painting.

What's your medium? Looks like three colors, a cool black, an earth red and an ochre.

I also think it's interesting that the left-handed artist is the only one who thought the second image read as the original.

Count your blessings, Nathan. Among the flaws I see when viewing my self-portraits in reverse are a lack of sufficient commissions to keep me from having to do self-portraits to stay sharp, an extra twenty pounds that doesn't show up only around my waist anymore, false representation of left-handedness, a student with skills exceeding confidence, and a fierce critic telling me that I'd better get everything right or else the guy who's looking into the mirror is going to be all over my case.

Hi Nathan,

If you are going to flip your painting, then you also need to flip your source photo or if you are working from life, use two mirrors for the reference image and compare those images, rather that original and flipped.

Comparing an original and a flipped will get you into all sorts of messes because faces are asymmetrical.

If you were to cut the painting in half and copy one half and flip it and join the two together, you will get another completely different person.

This aspect of faces becomes more obvious the older the person is.

I have seen this done with a photo of a famous Italian opera singer and you get two completely different people, one fat and one thin, who kind of look like the original but something is not right.

This is why we hate photos of ourselves and probably why, when we show our masterpiece to the subject, they stand and ponder and don't say anything for a long time..:)

Medium
 

My medium was Derwent Drawing Pencils. And you guessed the 3 colors. I drew it on gessoed cardboard. I also attempted to blend the colors with a wet brush.

Get a mirror
 

There is nothing like having a mirror stationed about 7 to 10 feet behind your easel. Turn and look into it fairly often. You'll be seeing in reverse, of course, which almost instantly lets you spot a place where you may have gone wrong. It also automatically doubles the space from you to your painting. It it's (the mirror) is 7 feet behind you, your painting appears to be twice that distance when viewed in the mirror. You get a different look both ways -- in reverse, and in distance.

This method has been used for a very long time because it works.

Rudolf Arnheim
 

Hi Nathan and all:

I became suddenly aware of the mirror phenomenon you describe at about the same time you first posted a year and a half ago.

Here's what happened:

I photographed a good friend's body of small still life paintings, about thirty in all. In Photoshop I was processing each individual digital image painstakingly, when I accidentally flipped one painting to its mirror reverse. I was shocked my friend's painting composition completely fell apart in reverse, and yet it looked perfectly stable when viewed normally!

I tested all 30 paintings and they all miserably failed as compositions in reverse. Then I had the nerve to telephone my friend and tell him how his paintings did not work in reverse!

His response was matter of the fact that he did not care if they did not hold up in reverse because that is not how he intended them to be viewed. But he also admitted that he has never in his life tested his compositions in a mirror.

I said I compulsively check mine in a mirror every hour, flip them upside down, and sideways too. He asked me why, stressing none of that is even necessary.

I soon came to realize that almost all Western art, if not all art, including sculpture becomes very unstable in a mirror view. My friend thought I should write a serious treatise on this. When I told my portrait agent about my discoveries, she said Garth, this has already been done, it was all in a chapter of a book she had.

Rudolf Arnheim's "Art and Visual Perception" was first published in 1954, and more than covers this human perceptual phenomenon. In a nutshell, it seems we humans at least in the Western tradition, read all images and compositions from left to right. Simply put, what looks correct from left to right , does not necessarily hold up from right to left.

Apparently perception has a set directional flow, just as time does.

So the bottom line is: Nathan, don't worry about how your drawing looks in a mirror, because it looks fine to everyone else as you drew it.

Garth

mirror check
 

I picked the first one, but it doesn't count now!!! Anyway, I find that after 20 hours of gazing at a piece, my eyes fill in that which I think should be there, also. To remedy this, I've placed a large mirror on the wall not quite opposite of my easel. I can easily turn and check were I'm at while I'm blocking. This also helps a good deal with still life work I do. You may think your perspective is OK but when you look in the mirror you can pick up those slight errors that throw things off.

I liked this exercise........ I picked #1 because, I would have chosen that pose myself. the flow of the painting reads left to right and circles back over your head nicely.

Nathan--

Jean and ReNae have it right.

The mirror is a great tool for alerting you to problems of composition, design, "flow," value, and sometimes problems with drawing, which will scream out at you when reversed if they're really serious.

But don't whip yourself overly if the face doesn't look exactly the same both ways. As Jean stated, no face is symmetrical, except maybe a supermodel's, who get hired for having perfect math in their visages. Your draftmanship in this drawing is better than most already, so don't worry so much. If it's off, you're good enough to catch it.

Best--TE