Have you ever tried drawing a circle? How did it go? Chances are it was pretty wonky, despite your best efforts, right?
Well that’s because circles are incredibly difficult to draw!
Difficult enough that there have been championships about drawing perfect circles! (Or as close as we can get, anyway.)
This video from Jonathan Newman shows a circle drawing championship featuring four “pro” teachers!
The contestants are Sam J Shah, Denis Sheeran, MaryAnn Moore Warner and Alex Overwijk.
Th video begins with some friendly banter between Overwijk and the class, talking about the methodology of drawing a perfect circle.
There is no time limit to the contest!
But you can be disqualified if you fail to draw a circle.
Each of the contestants gather around the blackboard to warm up and prepare…
“Seriously, what is the big deal with drawing circles,” you might ask…
Well drawing a perfect circle is actually nigh impossible! From Teen Kids News:
“If you were to take out a piece of paper right now and try to draw a perfect circle, you’d fail.”
“The act of drawing a perfect circle is a lot more complex than you think, because it requires your elbow and shoulder to work in perfect, independent harmony. This task is incredibly hard because your elbow is usually passive to your shoulder, which means that your shoulder movements typically dictate how your elbow moves.
“So, in order to draw a perfect circle, your brain has to coordinate a lot more than it’s used to. Also, research has shown that circle drawings actually deteriorate quickly because our minds start to forget about keeping our elbows in check.”
So not quite as simple as you thought! This of course only applies to freehand circles.
Tracing the outer edge of your margarine container onto a paper doesn’t count in these competitions!
In this competition seen in the video, each contestant finished extremely quickly and they each had different methods!
The whole competition only lasts about five seconds!
But it is very quickly apparent which circle is the closest to perfection!
The two circles featured above are those from Shah and Sheeran, respectively. Shah’s is a little more messy (and hidden partially behind the screen) but Sheeran’s is extremely neat.
The only issue is it’s length! It is more of an oval than a circle. It’s a fantastic attempt nonetheless!
Below, we can see Moore Warner’s attempt at a circle, which again is right at the edge of perfection but does not quite meet it! Her technique was certainly sound, you can even see her lining up her elbow before the contest begins, but it still requires some fine tuning!
Considering three of the four “pros” couldn’t quite take it the whole way, Pope Benedict was onto something about a perfect circle marking the greatest artist in the land. A story of Giotto’s perfect circle for context:
“One of the best perfect circle stories comes from the 14th century when Pope Benedict wanted to find the best artist in the land. After surveying many artists in the area, the Pope’s team came across Giotto di Bondone, an artist and painter. While many of the artists visited by the team gave them elaborate works to take back to the Pope, Giotto drew a perfect circle and handed it to the team.
“Baffled, they presented it to Pope Benedict who, knowing how difficult it was, crowned him the best artist of all.”
The above picture is Overwijk’s attempt. It’s nigh perfect except for the most difficult part: the connection. It’s the smallest hiccup but it’s there and noticing it is a huge part of our survival as a species! Noticing the flaws in non-perfect circles are exactly what allowed us to find plants that were okay to eat and which ones to avoid!
You can watch the video below to see how Overwijk manages such a feat, it’s incredibly interesting to see how calm and methodical he is as he draws!
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