1. Ruler slips while drawing a straight line and your pressing hard.
2. You just gulped a mouth full of jello as you are erasing a mistake. You then proceed to blow away the eraser crumbs.
3. Inadvertenly set your eraser in a wet coffee spill on your desk and then use the wet eraser.
4. Read number 2 above while viewing your drawing with a mouth full of coffee.
5. Grab a drawing you just finished and layed face down and mistakenly pick it up and run it through the shreder.

you use a ruler in art thats sacralidge[sp] unless you are using it for a grid and my bad if thats what you are doing .. but once you are a littlemore astablished you will be able to visulise a grid instead of drawing one

your no 2 blowing the erasure crumbs i use a big brush to brush mine away just incase i blow something like that onto the paper a big blusher brush is good as the bristle are very soft and dosnt damage the paper or picture
use putty erasures and roll up into a ball and stick them to the top of the picture that you are drawing you only need a little rolled up ball keeps it clean and you know where it is

I have no answer for no 5 just dont lay your paper face down

Brenda has a list somewhat like this in the back of D for D. Maybe she'll chime in here with one or two of the things she listed.

Here is mine:

Leave your drawing anywhere that is accessable to a cat. Muddy paw prints DON'T come out.

heres one!

not knowing what you are doing when you are drawing

wouldnt this be fun though .. get your animal to walk over a piece of paper with dirty feet then try and make a picture out of it .. animal art

hay u can even make your pet walk into paint and then get them to walk all over white paper!! and that would go for $10000 as i know of a Elephant here in england that paints and hes work goes for Big £$$$£££

i have even well years ago have walked though paint and then make art with my foot prints

How 'bout this:

"Whoops... that's not my drawing."

<erase><erase>
<exit the scene>


Okay... technically that is how to ruin someone elses drawing.

call me blonde rodders but i dont get it

They have this stuff... it like... changes hair color...

No... probably wouldn't work.

HAHA you would be so right i think its in my jeans

The one I like is showing the dog the newly finished drawing of a cat you did for someone on commission, and the dog grabs it thinking its a new toy to play tug of war with. He usually wins with it shaking away between his teeth.

Oh, well. I'm sure it had some errors you wanted to fix anyway. Sounds sorta like Calvin's shredder.

Good post, Calvin.

And Woo: Would I be mistaken to say that your jeans are blue?

Eric

Heres mine,
Race into the kitchen to show your partner your newly finished piece of work. Place it in the counter to give her a better view, then realise that the counter is soaking wet with cleaning fluid.....need i say more?
RJS

yes they are blue but its where i usually keep my brains

Never hand a drawing to a 7 year old boy who has just come from outside! Although I kept it because those finger prints got so much bigger so quick. (sighs) They grow so fast.

OH and never ever leave anything you want to keep on your boyfriends computer desk He might throw it away without realizing to you it WAS art.

Another way to ruin a sketch: sneeze after eating a burrito......btdt

not true!!! what if ur drawing things in perspective like buildings!!! even the pros use right agles and stuff.......

but if its for a portrait... lol... then yeah.

Let's not even talk about if your kitty is in "season".......she only marks things that are mine!!!
Laura

Showing Dad this topic and he says..:

How to deflate your ego.... realize after sneezing burrito picture looks better.


I say

ROFLMBO

Allowing your three year old son to color while sitting beside you and he decides to help with a nice bright green pencil crayon.

Awwww, Juniper, that will one day be beyond price. Children grow so fast! *Stumbles off to hug 11 and 9 year olds...*

Here's one of the fastest ways to ruin a drawing in progress.

Take a break and cover your work with a clean sheet of paper so you make sure it doesn't get messed. Then get the stupid idea to check whether a ballpoint pen still writes or not and absent mindedly press very hard on the clean sheet covering your work to test it.

Your drawing now has a couple of square inches of deep indents where you haven't drawn yet and which nothing will cover!!!

I think I'm going to die!!

Hahahahaha...been there done that!!! Only I'm so slow I didn't realize 'til some time later. That's when you're left wondering...how'd that happen....DUH!!! Then you feel like a 40 watt light bulb!

I'm so sorry you found out the hard way.
Laura

Here's another: drawing the face while your sleeve is rubbing the rest of your drawing. Trying afterwards to repair what you smeared with your sleeve time in which the side of your palm gets also dirty. Eyes getting tired due to poor light, because you're a great artist and is natural to starve for your art. Drinking some coffee and no! no! no!, not spilling it ! Sleeping a little and in the morning, daylight revealing your big drawing, all fingerprinted, smeared and overshadowed. Now's the time to spill your coffee, when you hear the client ringing at your door.

Fatcat
PS There is still a chance that your client likes sepia tones and you put too much milk.

-Falling asleep on your drawing.

-Leaving your drawing loosely laying anywhere where there might be the smallest of breezes.

-Stabbing your drawing tool through the middle of the drawing.

-Leaving your drawing anywhere but in a closed case. (Left one of mine on the top of a high cabinet, cat somehowgot on there. 'S like a eight foot jump sraight up from the floor. )

-Wiping your hand across the paper to get rid of eraser bits.

And now, the more obvious ones...

-Eating it.

-Burning it.

-Crumpling it up into a ball, and throwing it away.

I may be unethical, but especially for practice, all is fair. Even tracing can help you improve you skill. Just my opinion.

I have my young students do something like that when they are doing their animation unit. If they say they can't draw I have them draw a fast squiggle on the screen and then they all swap seats and everyone has to make a picture out of the squiggle!

Haha, funny you say that. Today I was working on a portrait of Johnny Depp for my mom at a picnic. There was a spider on my paper and when I tried to brush it off... I squished it. Now Johnny has spider juice on his forehead.

That's nothing. One time I was trying to blow some of those annoying eraser bits off on one drawing I was working on and accidently spit a big wet glob all over it.

This is a little sketch of my son wading at the community aquatic center last weekend:

[attachmentid=6053]

When he saw it in my sketchbook later that day, he said "Daddy, you forgot to put my face. I will fix it for you!" And grabbed a red Prismacolor pencil from my desk.

I did manage to stop him in time.

hello you crumple it up thats the fastest way unnless you have lighter

Going overboard... as in, not knowing when to stop.

And pressing too hard with your pencils. Remember, never press harder then you would with a pen (when writing)

Um, this isn't a way to ruin one, just a question. Why is this in the suggestion topics?

I always press too hard with my pencils. I've just learned to ignore the dints in the paper. I wouldn't have many drawings left otherwise.

Here's a new one:

Let your just-completed drawing slip, unnoticed, off the shelf where it is stored; then roll over it with your 180-lb carcass in a desk chair.

Here's another one: Give your 3-yr-old gdaughter some paper scissors and a cutout book while she is beside my easel then go to the kitchen for a minute or two.

Maire

Aaaaaaaaaak!

Use an lighter on the paper or makulate the paper or you youst eat like a pig abowe the drawing and drink like a fisch.

Hey thanks Guys, this is the funniest forum I have read for awhile, and the enthusiasm! I have had a few of these mishaps but thank God not too many. More More More Pleaaasse.

i always ruin a drawing when i pick up a pencil.

paul

Finish feeding your baby, then carry him over and let him admire your work-in-progress...

With slight variations, I found this was an excellent way to ruin a shirt as well.

we all know the dangers of drinking and driving, I've learned not to drink and draw,
small children, dogs, cats, dogs chasing cats, heck even burrito snot does not compare to being drunk and trying to draw!!!

Here mine just finishing portrait of mother in law partner walks
past hits arm give her very large brown moustache

arrrrr wonder what it will look after the shredder had ago
I not try again yet