Recording Scott Dyer’s Cat’s Grin Card: Crossed Sections and a Central Hinge

Record this scene by preserving three relationships: the card’s sections cross, they remain connected, and they share a central hinge. Build the description and sketch around those facts, leaving unspecified details open.

Establish the Cat’s Grin card reference

Scott Dyer’s Cardstories website provides the relevant primary source. In its “Rules and Gallery” page, the section headed “Cat’s Grin” Fold describes designs based on a hinge point at the center of the card. Dyer names “Cat’s Grin” and “Rectangled” as the simplest examples, explaining that more elaborate designs introduce additional crossing points. This establishes the named reference and the importance of the central connection. Rules and Gallery — CARDSTORIES (https://www.cardstories.co/rules-and-gallery.html)

Dyer places this group within his “True Topological” category, which he describes as continuous forms without detachments or glue. For a visual record, that material continuity matters: crossed sections belong to the connected card structure. His gallery also explains that attribution can be uncertain across designs, so describing the reference as “Cat’s Grin, documented in Scott Dyer’s gallery” avoids making an unsupported claim that he originated it. Rules and Gallery — CARDSTORIES (https://www.cardstories.co/rules-and-gallery.html)

The scene supplied here establishes crossed sections sharing a central hinge. It provides no particular viewing angle, printed design, dimensions, lighting, or transformation sequence. The source identifies the card reference; it does not report this scene or a dream. Keep those roles separate when making the record.

Describe the crossing and connection precisely

Begin with a compact sentence that can stand beside the drawing: “The Cat’s Grin card has crossed sections connected at a shared central hinge.” This preserves the supplied geometry without assigning an angle, a front section, or an unseen arrangement.

Then distinguish three kinds of information. The crossing describes how sections are arranged in the view. The hinge describes where they remain connected. The visible contours describe how much of each section can actually be followed. Treating these separately prevents a sketch from turning the central connection into an undifferentiated tangle.

Use more specific language only where the view supports it. “Passes in front of” records a depth relationship. “Meets at” records a location. “Remains connected through” records material continuity. These phrases answer different questions, so choose the one that matches the available detail rather than using them interchangeably.

The following short list can guide the accompanying description. It is a recording aid, not a claim that these details were supplied:

• Which visible section can be followed toward the central hinge?

• Where does another section cross its path?

• Is the front-to-back order visible at that crossing?

• Which boundaries remain clear near the shared connection?

• Which details are unspecified or obscured?

If the front-to-back order is unavailable, retain “crossed sections” and say that the overlap order is unspecified. A precise statement of that limit is more useful than selecting a plausible arrangement and presenting it as observed.

Sketch the contours without inventing the hidden layout

Use an initial outline to establish the visible shape and the position of the central connection within it. The National Gallery of Art describes contour drawing as using long, continuous lines to convey an object’s shape. Applied here, that approach gives the sections readable boundaries before surface detail is added. Lesson: Drawing Everyday Objects — National Gallery of Art (https://www.nga.gov/educational-resources/lesson-drawing-everyday-objects)

Follow one visible edge toward the hinge, then follow another. Pause wherever an edge disappears. Do not extend it through the obscured area merely because a continuation seems likely. You can annotate that area with “continuation not visible” while preserving the clearly established fact that the sections share a central connection.

Keep the hinge legible through an adjacent label if necessary. An illustrative drawing choice would be to write “shared central hinge” outside the outline and connect the label to the relevant region with a fine leader line. That line belongs to the annotation. It does not imply a rod, pin, or other component in the card.

Avoid replacing the connection with a large dot or disk. Such a mark could read as an added object and conceal the very boundaries the record needs to preserve. Likewise, drawing two complete outlines across each other without considering visibility can make the sections look transparent.

If the whole card cannot be described confidently from the supplied information, use a limited structural sketch and label it accordingly. A drawing identified as an illustrative diagram can explain the shared hinge, but it should not be presented as an exact reconstruction of an unspecified view.

Use overlap and open space to check the geometry

Overlap is useful when the visible scene establishes depth order. York University’s Drawing Essentials Series explains overlap as one object partially hiding another. For this card, the practical question is where one section interrupts the visible boundary of another. Drawing Essentials Series — Calumet & Stong Colleges, York University (https://www.yorku.ca/colleges/ccsc/drawing-essentials-series/)

Where that order is known, stop the hidden edge at the covering section. Where it is unknown, add a note instead of choosing an order. This keeps an illustrative convention from silently becoming a new fact about the scene.

Next examine the open areas between visible sections. Getty defines negative space as the area around the primary objects, and York’s drawing lesson extends attention to spaces between and within an object. These concepts offer a second way to check the card: compare the gaps as carefully as the solid sections. Understanding Formal Analysis: Elements of Art — Getty (https://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/building_lessons/formal_analysis.html), Drawing Essentials Series — York University (https://www.yorku.ca/colleges/ccsc/drawing-essentials-series/)

For example, if a visible gap narrows toward the hinge, preserve that narrowing rather than regularizing it into an even opening. This is a conditional drawing example, not an additional feature of the supplied scene. Apply the same care to unequal spacing or an off-center appearance caused by the viewing angle, when those details are actually available.

A useful diagnostic is to read the sketch twice: first as connected card material, then as the spaces separating its visible sections. If the material seems detached, revisit the hinge depiction. If a gap has disappeared, revisit the nearby contours before adding more detail.

Keep surface detail and movement subordinate to structure

Add color, printed marks, texture, and shading only when they are established by the scene being recorded. A reference photograph may help identify a card, but its particular surface appearance should remain separately identified if it was not part of the scene.

Shading can describe form, but it also introduces information about illumination. The National Gallery of Art’s drawing lesson explains how pencil pressure and hatching create light and dark areas. Here, use those methods only to represent available tonal detail, or explicitly label them as illustrative drawing choices. A darker section should not silently become evidence of a different material. Lesson: Drawing Everyday Objects — National Gallery of Art (https://www.nga.gov/educational-resources/lesson-drawing-everyday-objects)

The supplied scene specifies a configuration rather than a change sequence. Record that state without adding rotation, opening, closing, or assembly. A hinge identifies the connection in this description; its presence alone does not establish that movement was seen.

Finish with a description and drawing that agree: crossed sections, continuous card material, and one shared central hinge. Preserve every available boundary and depth relationship, and label illustrative additions where they occur. The resulting record should let a reader follow the structure while recognizing exactly where the supplied visual information ends.

Sources

• Rules and Gallery — CARDSTORIES (https://www.cardstories.co/rules-and-gallery.html)

• Lesson: Drawing Everyday Objects — National Gallery of Art (https://www.nga.gov/educational-resources/lesson-drawing-everyday-objects)

• Drawing Essentials Series — Calumet & Stong Colleges, York University (https://www.yorku.ca/colleges/ccsc/drawing-essentials-series/)

• Understanding Formal Analysis: Elements of Art — Getty (https://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/building_lessons/formal_analysis.html)