I painted this
Which could equally well have been this
When I did a search for similar pictures I found all of the people facing to the left.
When I did a search for rolling waves the waves always came from the right and rolled to the left.
Is this just one of those weird things that makes stuff look right from one perspective or is it a weird right/left bias?
I'm right-handed and would usually draw a face facing left I think.
I’m a lefty and would probably draw a side profile as per your second picture. There’s a lot of lefty artists so would be surprised if an LH RH bias was obvious. If one was being artistic and aiming to derive meaning then perhaps (in western cultures where we write from L to R) the face looking to the right is looking to future whereas the other is looking to the past. It’s probably more likely that people tend to take some previous image as inspiration and that reinforces any bias.
I find the second image slightly disconcerting - the kind of feeling I get when something is ever so subtly not what I expect.
It also appears to be looking into the distance on the right, whereas the first image is looking into the foreground on the left.
I’m the only righthander in our family of four.
Cudiwifter here and the second picture facing right is my preference
This is perhaps down to writing as an intermediary? We write from left-to-right so as not to smudge ink; therefore we're conditioned to expect images to 'flow' in the same direction?
Here's an outlier:
I'm a leftie, but have the artistic ability of a breeze block so can't really comment further.
I've never thought about this before but I'm a lefty and when drawing animals with my daughter (the only drawing I do) they are without exception facing right...
It would certainly fit Cougar's theory as it starts with the face and moves left, preventing any smudging.
I've got a pic of my dog I drew - facing left. I've had a look at other stuff and there's no pattern - some left, some right, some straight ahead. I'm left handed at drawing. But right handed at other stuff.
I am cack-handed at most things I do and use brushes both left and right handed so I am interested in the responses so far. Thanks All and keep them coming
Us lefties have a writing style that's known as The Claw.
In order to see what you're writing you need to bend your wrist and pretty much have your hand above the text. It leads to terrible cramp.
Its tough being a leftie 🙁
Lefty here - the other option rather than the claw is the angle-up pen and the hand goes underneath the words, but smudging ink is an issue either way 🙂
I'm not a visual artist (it's never been a skill of mine) but if I were to draw a face from the side I'd go facing right, probably by mapping the shoulders and then deciding where the nose point would be - my assumption would be that centuries of art has cemented the tradition but I can't see that handedness would be the factor, surely there will have been loads of left-handed artists (Picasso was IIRC???) that painted in this format ?
Us lefties have a writing style that’s known as The Claw.
Speak for yourself. Do you use a fountain pen?
the other option rather than the claw is the angle-up pen
And you.
I write perfectly normally. As a result I spent five years' worth of English lessons being chastised for pressing on too hard and for having shitty handwriting.
my assumption would be that centuries of art has cemented the tradition
Mona Lisa, anyone?
I just did a Google Images search for "old masters portraits" and I can't immediately see a particular trend for one way over the other.
Hm. Isn't it funny in itself that we think there is? I'd have said the same before I looked.
or is it a weird right/left bias?
Rather looking at old masters that will rarely be a fully side-on view profile view - If you search for 'Cameo Portrait' a type of portrait that will typically be fully in profile like your OP - it seems pretty much 50:50. Although if the first few results are indicative... it seems more common for men to be facing left and women to be facing right.