Symmetry Drawing Exercises I Use to Calibrate My Hand
Drawing symmetrical shapes freehand is harder than drawing circles, and practicing it transfers to anything you draw. Symmetry drawing is the exercise I added to my routine about six months ago and it has improved my hand more than any other practice. The exercise sounds trivial: draw a shape on one side of a vertical line, then draw its mirror image on the other side. In practice, the second side exposes every small bias your hand has, and correcting those biases transfers to anything else you draw. Here is how I use symmetry exercises and from them. Start with Simple Symmetrical Pairs I start with the easiest pair: one curve on the left of the vertical line, mirror it on the right. A simple hill shape, an arc, a wave. The first attempt always has the second curve slightly different from the first. I draw the second curve, look at it, and identify what differs. Usually one of three things: the height is different, the width is different, or the bulge is in the wrong place. Identifying the specific error matters. If I say the curves are different, I learn nothing. More guides are on the Draw Perfect Blog.