ArtBistro

When I've spent a zillion hours looking at one of my paintings, i turn it upside down, and suddenly I see things that weren't there before. if the perspective doesn't work, i suddenly see why, if someone's head is too big or a hand too awkward, i suddenly notice it. if it's a good composition, it looks good upside down or right side up. it's a great trick to shake up my vision, show me things i didnt see before (even after staring at it forever), and even to reassure myself that it's good.

try it.

Sometimes it is easier to draw something when you are a beginner - if the piece your are coping is up-side down.

It's a good way to emotionally detach and render a portrait to get the proportions correct... as long as you are working from a photo reference of course. I wouldn't try hanging a model upside down to work from life, most people just aren't attractive when you hang them upside down, lol, the skin sags in unusual places and their face gets all red....  they tend to get irritable, etc.

But that is rendering... you asked about turning a painting upside down. Yes, that can be a good idea too, but I try to do it in the preliminary stages of a piece (sketches or thumbnails) to take a look at my composition. Back in the mists of time I had a  graphic design instructor (Angelo Ciotti) who told us that if a design has decent composition, its elements should work just as well upside down as right side up, if a bit more abstractly due to context, type etc. It holds true with  other compositions such as paintings and drawings as well. Quite often what determines the quality of a piece lies more heavily in its design (composition) than with the rendering style or proficiency, especially the more abstract you become. Nonrepresentational or geometric Abstract art without strong design tends to leave most of the viewing public confused and prone to burbling "art like my preschooler" remarks... so I think it is even more crucial for the abstract artist to seriously critique the design of their pieces.

In my last quarter when I was an undergraduate I took an independent study in abstract painting.  My instructor, Suzanne Jackson, would tell me to turn my painting in all directions before I called it 'finished'.  It the work seemed to make sense in all directions then it was probably successful.

I used to do it only with paintings, but nowadays I even turn the paper up side down with drawings... because it helps me there as well.

 gosh, I even turn it sideways and diagonally!

Sometimes, I put my artwork in a mirror to see two point of views.

i used to turn those awful prints you would see in hotel rooms you know the ones that match the ugly bedspreads. I alwasy wondered with so much beautiful artwork out there why these pieces ended up there so upside down before i left as a prank in high school. Now I feel bad for the maids who had to fix it, and realize those ugly prints must have been beautiful in somebody's mind or they wouldnt have ended up a reprductions on a hotel wall.

I have also been known to lay on the floor and photgraph things upside down, especially my babies during tummy time, it helps you get the camera right under the baby to capure expression.

I used to love to just observe the world from upside down. I even wrote a peom about ti in high schoo- i wonder if i still have it.

I also love when kids get to that age as toddlers shortly after walking where they notcie the world upside down and you catch them bent over looking at things through thier legs upside down about ready to flip over...I dont know what it is they have discovered, that hing slook funny that way, the rush they get from blood rushing to theri head or that thier bodies can do a summersault. Any way its a fun upside down age. To observe.

I was just at my brothers house where he had one of the paintings I painted for him hanging sideways. It looked great that way too. I didn't know if he knew it was sideways or not, but it was the only way to fir on the wall they put it on and it still worked that way. I painted it as a horizontal piece and they hung it vertically.

I'm an illustrator and Frank Frazetta told me ages ago that whenever I think I'm really cooking to watch out. He said it was easy to make an unbalanced design when momentum is starting to carry something. He told me to stand the image upside down and on all sides and see how it still works. I always start by looking at the original design in a mirror to see if it leans too much in any one direction. I've found he was right and that a well balanced design draws in and holds the eye regardless of the direction from which the eyes start viewing the artwork.

Rick