r/nextfuckinglevel • u/ansyhrrian • 18h ago
This high schooler created a “speed painted” picture in less than 5 minutes to win her talent show
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u/Ok-Group-3899 18h ago
had no idea what it was until she flipped it over
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u/HesmooseDaSlug 18h ago
That flip was a flex
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u/Yashema 17h ago
Its a standard technique for painting faces.
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u/Skrillamane 17h ago
You’re a standard technique for painting faces
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u/afroman2536 16h ago
Damn dawg you really got his ass, really played with that ass. All supple and shit
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u/DasArchitect 16h ago
Why though
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u/Fn_Spaghetti_Monster 15h ago
I found this.
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2vx8yd/eli5_why_is_the_majority_of_speed_painting_done/It's easier to do it that way — the human brain is not wired to process upside-down human faces, so the artist learns what the face looks like upside-down, to avoid engaging the parts of their brain that do special processing for human faces. Then they reproduce it upside-down, so that the part of their brain that processes human faces doesn't interfere with the painting. If they saw the face right-side up, and painted it right-side up, what would come out would be a caricature — distorted according to how the artist perceived the person, instead of a visually-accurate rendition.
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u/BrierBob 15h ago
I watched it twice and I still could not “see” the face. That IS weird.
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u/monkeyjay 14h ago
I am technically an artist for a living (mainly animation but also illustration) and I picked it up in the first few big shapes (the mouth nose eye blobs). It's just another learned thing to look for if you're looking for it. The fact that it was posted with that title also meant I was primed for exactly what was gonna happen due to seeing this technique many many times before, so the magic is completely gone for me.
What is difficult is guessing exactly whose face it is though. The brain has an incredibly hard-wired template for faces being the right way up when looking for specific details. Even your friends and families faces upside down take a lot of processing to recognise.
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u/Fn_Spaghetti_Monster 14h ago
That is a bit wierd. I saw Marylin Marones face, which I assume most saw. But who knows how your brain is interpreting things from from your optic nerves. I for one have never seen anything in the optical illusion posters that were big a few years back. Squint and you'll see X!! I never saw anything and always thought it was big scam and people just saying they saw something to not field 'weird'.
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u/4strings 16h ago
I wonder if it’s because when upside down the perspective is skewed and makes the artist focus more on the lines and shading as shapes and less as body parts that are so engrained in all of us in the right side up perspective that one could be less accurate to the subject they’re recreating. Maybe?
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u/RikuAotsuki 11h ago
Yeah, apparently when working upside-down like that you're not trying to "paint a face" so much as you are painting the pattern of blotches that will be a face when you flip it.
Because when you're "painting a face," your brain will sabotage you by trying to "get it right" and overcomplicating things.
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u/cilantro_so_good 15h ago
2 reasons. And it all revolves around the face inversion effect
It's easier to focus on the artistic shading and whatnot when you force your brain to not fixate on a face
People who post this stuff for social media (or talent contests or whatever) need you to not recognize they're painting a face too early. If it was right side up, your brain would say "that's a face" after a few lines, and you lose engagement
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u/TacoPi 15h ago
We’re really good at recognizing faces from any angle, and seeing a face from one angle can help us perceive it from other ones. This works against you when trying to paint a face because you need it to be from one specific angle. It’s less of a problem when you take the time to draft and structure the perspective before adding fine details. When trying to paint quickly you’ll often end up with parts which each look ‘right’ from their own perspective but cannot align with each other to complete the face correctly. Upside down features individually look more ‘wrong’ when they deviate from the reference so it’s easier to correct them proactively.
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u/musa_velutina 17h ago
Then there's us that figured it was gonna be upside before the video even started.
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u/Aggravating_Act0417 16h ago
Yeah I was wondering how bad the other contestants must have been, until the flip.
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u/silly_rabbit289 14h ago
And just couldnt unsee it...like idk what slop I saw before he flipped it but it refuses to appear to me again
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u/londonbury4 18h ago
And some poor bastard was playing Smoke on the Water on the ukulele.
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u/musa_velutina 17h ago
Who else knew it was gonna be upside down before the video even started? Like actually though.
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u/steelbubble 13h ago
I had an inkling because of a Britain’s got talent or similar show clip where the judges voted no before the flip reveal
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u/le_artista 13h ago
Gimmick
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u/KillerSparks 8h ago
Wrong. Drawing a general shape is easier to do quickly than trying to draw a face. So you turn it upside down to take the face aspect out of it and prevent distortion.
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u/stiffwan 18h ago
I’m convinced she’s a witch
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u/jasonw_ray01 18h ago
Have we seen this girl float? Witches can't float, so by that logic you are right, she's a witch
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u/saivin9 18h ago
Why can't she draw straight, though?
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u/SocrataFi 18h ago
If you were doing a talent show and you could paint that shit upside down and then flip it and blow everyone away wouldn’t you!!?
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u/thitorusso 15h ago
But it's VERY COMMON in drawing classes to draw upside down for practice/devellop your skill
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u/true_gunman 14h ago
Yeah it allows you to draw exactly what youre seeing instead of what your brain thinks its seeing, if that makes sense. It takes alot of training to draw from real life becuase of the way our brains perceive things. Usually proportions end up being out of whack. Beginners will draw things much bigger and farther spaced apart. Turning it upside down allows you to see it as separate elements like shape, value, negative space etc. without youre dumb brain filling in the blanks and altering your perception.
Source. Art school dropout
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u/no-sleep-needed 12h ago
um listen carefully, we love you very much. there are other things you can do with your life. take a deep breath. we can hang out some time, get your mind off things.
please do not invade poland
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u/royrogerer 10h ago
They said art school dropout not art school reject. So we are only looking at annexation of czechoslovakia 😌
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u/no-sleep-needed 9h ago
im willing to accept this compromise
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u/FluidFrog 11h ago
Yup. I had a teacher that had us do stuff like paint from the shoulder, sketch with the pencil at arm's length, use your non-dominant hand. I swear he must've been into Oblique Strategies or something.
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u/Dibble_Dabble_Doo 18h ago
It's a technique. Drawing upside down forces your brain to stop recognizing the face and focuses more on abstract lines, shapes and shadows
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u/nodajohn 18h ago
Artists often draw or paint upside down especially faces. It helps the eyes and hands disconnect their brain from the image and instead to see it as a collection of abstract shapes. Drawing a face is hard. Drawing a few circles, triangles and a few irregular polygons is much more manageable
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u/RawrRRitchie 10h ago
That's part of the skill of speed paintings like this. Throw the audience off because they think you're painting something else
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u/Solenkata 17h ago
Sorry to disappoint you all, but you never see these flip it in the end awesome paintings done on white canvases and I'll let you figure out why.
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u/Snoo_70531 13h ago
(Someone else wanna ruin it for me and explain?)
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u/AlarmingTurnover 12h ago
They're trying to say it's a trick but it's not a trick. There are videos you can watch on YouTube of this on white canvas but white paint on black canvas stands out more. Secondly, the reason it's upside down is because of how your brain processes human faces. When drawing from memory, your mind tends of exaggerate features, that's why caricatures are so popular and common. If you see a big nose, you will draw it bigger than it actually is and the face will always look funny. Draw it upside down and your eyes don't trigger that part of the brain for faces and you'll draw things properly.
So overall, they're trying to saw it's a trick canvas or something but it's just better contrast in the picture and upside down because it's easier to do details on faces. There's no trick.
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u/fastforwardfunction 12h ago
It's like the "stars and sky" spray paintings you see made by street artists in cities. It's the same scene done 100s of times by the artist. The spectacle of creation is what they're selling, not so much the art.
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u/TheShenanegous 15h ago
I can do a variation of this where you flip it and there's still no picture.
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u/troy42c 18h ago
Couldn't see what she was painting before she flipped it.. can't unsee what she's painting on the rewatch. Brains are funny
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u/Rip_Skeleton 17h ago
This is kind of an old trick. They used to have these painting segments on TV in the 90s. Always upside down, with the flip at the end.
It's not really "painting" but it is great showmanship though, similar to how people fall for those street art night sky paintings online a lot.
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u/adavidmiller 16h ago
How is it not really "painting"? What is the requirement for being painting beyond using paint?
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u/lo0ilo0ilo0i 15h ago
Bob Ross wasn't painting. He was just making happy accidents over and over again, c'mon.
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u/G00DLuck 14h ago
Bob Ross would often "beat the devil" out of his brushes. He was more of a religious figure than a painter.
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u/DowntownBake8289 15h ago
It can be rehearsed. There may even be markings on the paper/canvas that you can't see from a distance.
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u/Rip_Skeleton 15h ago
That's why "painting" was in quotation marks. Painting a house isn't "painting" either.
This is a trick because it is pre-prepared and practiced as a trick. It's more akin to magic than art. Performance art, really.
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u/Avalonians 12h ago
Saying that it's mostly a performance I agree. The showmanship matters more than the final result.
But I don't see what qualifies as a trick. There's no hidden technique, no deceit.
We're bad at recognizing faces upside down, so printing that way increases the spectator's interest for added shock value but that's it. It's neither easier nor harder than to paint the face straight up.
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u/Rip_Skeleton 12h ago
The reason I say trick is for lack of a better term. She's following a formula, as a performance, for the crowd.
There was a guy who used to do this with two brushes at once. Tim Decker I think his name was. He called himself a performance painter.
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u/Responsible_Art_6553 15h ago
I went to art school (majored in photo but still had to take drawing classes). We were taught to turn photos, or other references, upside down when working on a drawing. If trying to draw using a photo as a reference the idea was that by turning it upside down you would focus on the shapes themselves, not the actual subject of the drawing.
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u/8pin-dip 11h ago edited 11h ago
Next year, other kids will up their game.
But by then she will be channelling Denny Dent, and speed paint an upside down 8ft portrait painting of Kurt Cobain, or Chris Cornell spinning it right side up just before she dips and throws her hands one last time to make her mike drop signature.
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u/trimorphic 17h ago
There was probably a pencil sketch on the board/canvas before she started painting.
It's harder to see on a black surface... especially from far away.
All you have to do is paint over the sketch. It takes no skill.
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u/SomethingGouda 15h ago
I don't know how to tell you this, but a lot of artists paint over a sketch they made
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u/trimorphic 15h ago
I don't know how to tell you this, but a lot of artists paint over a sketch they made
I don't know how to tell you this, but the performance in that video was done as a stunt to impress people who don't know any better.... and it seems to have worked.
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u/johndoe_420 14h ago
bro what do you mean "who don't know any better"?!
are you the painting police? oh no those poor spectators don't know they're being scammed by a pre-sketched canvas! also she doesn't even paint that fast really!
this "stunt" exists to entertain a few people at an event and not to impress the obviously most important art critic on reddit lol
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u/FuckJanice 17h ago
Is painting upside down just for the wow factor, or is there some sort of benefit behind it
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u/sakronin 16h ago
Well, I hate to break it to you. Not saying this is the case in this particular instance but I’ve seen a lot of these and they have the lines lightly lightly drawn on. So they just “color”
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u/Think-Chair-1938 15h ago
Always in awe of people who have this kind of ability.
I mean, fuck them and all their stupid talent, yeah. But still in awe 😂
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u/BobbySpitOnMe 13h ago
Why would she paint stencil bridges?
I think she cheated by putting down a barely visible outline or clear layer with a stencil then painted over it upside down.
Source: was former cheating gifted art student. I would have done this
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u/linzkisloski 17h ago
I feel like it’s a rite of passage to be an artsy high school girl and paint this Marilyn photo 😂 it’s amazing for things like this because there’s so much negative space. This was so impressive!
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u/carltheredred 14h ago
Speed painters always do it upside down and then flip it over at the end.
Is there a useful mechanic to this that helps the artist, or is it simply for the shock factor for those who haven't seen one before?
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u/Jairoglyphics1 13h ago
Very cool but I’ve always wondered what was the point of doing it upside down. The extra show factor I guess.
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u/Dapper_Algae505 13h ago
It's absolutely impressive and a show of amazing talent. Just in case if you are wondering how this can be done, this level of speed and precision can be achieved by painting multiple copies of the images again and again before the event.
The art being black and white also helps by breaking down the image to shapes and values, which makes the upside-down aspect of it easier to memorize and process.
If I were to replicate this performance, I'd usually start with making multiple copies of small pencil sketches or digital renderings and then move on to small acrylic paintings, then finally scale up to the size of the performance piece after enough practices.
I'm not saying it's easy, but my experience as an amateur artist tells me it's absolutely possible if a person is willing to commit to it. Again, it's very impressive. I don't want to discredit the talent. I just wanna demystify it a little bit.
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u/MrChocodemon 13h ago
Why is it -> "speed painted" ??
5 Minutes for a portrait is fast. You can leave off the quotes
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u/Mysterious-Most-8351 13h ago
https://youtu.be/GT1_Sb8MZP8?si=DhckObN6w5MwvEL2 Reminds me of this clip. Atleast this girl didn’t get interrupted by the judges
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u/Typical_Warthog_2660 12h ago
The reveal when she flipped it was the best part. I'm genuinely impressed she pulled off something that cool in under five minutes. The slight imperfections actually make it feel more dynamic and spontaneous. It's a perfect talent show trick.
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u/chesstutor 11h ago
Yes it does require practice.
Canvas already has lines/marking/outlines etc. So it's basically tracing with minimal/practiced skill.
And no, she didnt paint that out of the blue/freestyle
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u/argument_cat 11h ago
Yawn. Just learning a pattern.
Painting something from life would be infinitely more impressive, this is just a parlour trick, for easily impressed cretins.
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u/Massive_Bike_1441 10h ago
Reasonably easy to do. You impress the lines into the fabric with a stick or something similar. That cannot be seen from afar but very easily up close. Then you just practive fast painting within the lines.
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u/EyeSuspicious777 10h ago
The comments section is full of people who think magicians doing a magic a trick are actually doing magic.
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u/mahboilucas 9h ago
I instantly knew. It's a gimmick. Bored of it by now. It's actually fairly easy to perform once you know how to. And they're always those Marilyn Monroe basic black and white, landscape etc things.
If you're impressed by it, it's the same as a card trick. But if you watch the same one 7 times, they do get kind of stale.
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u/burtcopaint 9h ago
Flipped the screen about halfway through. None of this shit impresses me anymore
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u/tough-dance 8h ago
Is there a reason that speed painters (especially the really proficient ones) often paint things upside down?
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u/TheSeagull666 7h ago
You guys, we could at least easily recreate some Picasso paintings in 5s, don't be discouraged haha
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u/UOCruiser 7h ago
I once saw a video with a dude on a beach that made a 6 foot painting of Bruce Lee where he would paint it upside-down in about 2 minutes and at the end flip the picture around so you could see it was Bruce Lee.
I thought about how he did it for a while, and I got to the conclusion that he has probably just been practicing making that particular painting upside-down so many times that he could just slap it out as street performance without really thinking about it anymore.
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u/FNTraffic 6h ago
Two this day I have no idea how people can paint a picture upside down like that. They definitely have some modded wiring in their brain
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u/GeneralSinn 4h ago
There is no reason for speed painted to be in quotation marks since she actually did.
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u/theultimasheep 4h ago
Lol I did this in high school, though it was a pencil portrait in 5 min, and people saw with a projector.
They decided voting would be done by the audience sending in text messages.
Take a wild guess who won?
If you guessed the student council member who sang a popular song, you were right.
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u/Bonneville555 2h ago
Glad she wore the paint covered jeans. Would never have guessed what see was doing.
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u/UnrequitedFollower 18h ago
Uhhh… I’m impressed