Diagnose / Any medium
Mistakes in any medium
These faults turn up whether you draw in pencil or paint in oil. They are about seeing, measuring and deciding, not about the material.
10 faults, most common first
- Copying every detail of a reference without simplifyingThe drawing is filled with high-contrast, tiny marks spread uniformly across every square centimetre. Rescue
- Not checking work in a mirror or at a distanceA portrait or figure exhibits an unintended tilt, an eye sitting higher than its partner, or an overall drift to one side. Rescue
- Subject has no focal pointThe canvas contains equal amounts of detail, contrast, and sharp edges everywhere. Rescue
- Colour palette fights: unplanned mix of many chromasThe painting features high-intensity, pure pigment across every corner without a clear dominant hue. Rescue
- Composition cut off at awkward placesLimbs, joints, or primary objects hit the boundary of the page in an awkward manner. Partly
- Local colour only: ignoring reflected light and temperatureThe object is painted using only its local hue mixed with black for shadow and white for highlight. Rescue
- Stopping too early because it looks fine in the phone photoThe physical artwork appears faint, lacking rich darks and crisp details, despite reading clearly when photographed. Rescue
- Tangents: edges kissing awkwardlyTwo distinct edges in the picture touch exactly at their borders without clear overlap. Rescue
- Framing wrongly: cropped or overmattedThe outer border of the frame or mat cuts directly into the subject matter, leaving no margin for the composition to breathe. Rescue
- Shapes all similar in sizeThe masses, light patches, or negative spaces across the work are all roughly the same dimensions. Rescue
Checklist: check your work against these
Each line is the quick test from the matching page. Print this page for a studio checklist.
- Copying every detail of a reference without simplifying. Squint heavily at your source photo; if half the tiny details disappear in your blur, but they are clearly rendered on your paper, you have over-copied.
- Not checking work in a mirror or at a distance. Hold the work up to a flat mirror or invert the canvas upside down right now; any lean will jump out immediately.
- Subject has no focal point. Look away for five seconds, then glance quickly at your artwork: if your eyes dart around frantically rather than settling on one clear spot, you have no focal point.
- Colour palette fights: unplanned mix of many chromas. Take a photo of your painting and desaturate it halfway; if the composition suddenly becomes calmer and easier to read, your saturation is unmanaged.
- Composition cut off at awkward places. Hold your hands or two sheets of paper over the margins to test shifting the crop inward or outward by two centimetres.
- Local colour only: ignoring reflected light and temperature. Examine the shadow edge of the object; if it is merely a darker, duller version of the light side, you have missed ambient bounce.
- Stopping too early because it looks fine in the phone photo. Step back three metres from the easel in normal room light without your device and see if the darkest darks still hold authority.
- Tangents: edges kissing awkwardly. Trace the silhouette outlines with your finger to spot any places where two different objects share an identical boundary line.
- Framing wrongly: cropped or overmatted. Place four scraps of white paper along the edges of your painting to simulate a mount window and see if any focal points get crowded.
- Shapes all similar in size. Squint at the artwork and group the elements into basic shapes to see if they all take up roughly equal area.