Edges and Lines

Blind Contour Line

This exercise is good for developing co-ordination between one's eye and hand and for developing observational skill.  You're using your eyes to carefully and intensely observe your subject.  However, as you work you are not allowed to look at your paper or drawing hand.  That's the blind part.  Not being allowed to keep looking back and forth from your subject to your paper forces you to listen less to your verbal left brain and listen more to your visual right brain.  It forces you to trust yourself in ways that you're not used to.

This is also good for calming and getting yourself centered.  When we get to class or when we try to take a break from our regular lives to make a work of art there's usually a lot of mental activity or stress that needs to be left behind before the work can begin.  Spending some time on this exercise works very well.

This exercise also teaches students a lot about line.  We've all got habits of making lines in certain ways.  It's sort of like having your own handwriting.  One of the most important lessons that I have learned is that those habits are often the thing that gets in the way of being able to make an interesting drawing.  Lines made in this way may be some of the best, most interesting lines you'll ever make.  They bring your drawing to life, I think, because they're not trying to be like something else you've seen before.  They're simply trying to follow the same path that your eye follows.  You may not like them now, but hang on to them.  I think you'll change your mind in the future.

The one thing this exercise is not about is making a drawing.  You must understand that you are not making a drawing.  Instead, you are practicing a skill that is necessary for making drawings.  Think about an athlete doing a skill building drill.  For example, a soccer player repeatedly kicking a ball at a red target on a wall.  During soccer matches players don't kick balls at red spots on walls.  But doing that in practice will help improve their accuracy in games.  You're a similar thing, practicing a skill so you can use it when the time comes.

You will have a variety of thoughts as you are doing this exercise.  Most commonly people feel stupid as they do this.  Or they think this is a pointless exercise as the resulting work will not be a "good" drawing.  Again, you are not making a drawing.  Just keep following those edges.  Try your best to ignore those thoughts and quiet your mind.

Here's a blind contour drawing by Claude Heath.  Click on it and read more about his process.

Claude Heath, Ben Nevis, 2003, Acrylic inks on triacetate film

Heath made many of these drawings without looking at the paper and many of them while wearing a blindfold so he couldn't look at the subject or his drawing.  Instead he felt the subject and made lines corresponding to what his fingers felt.  

Here's how we're going to do it.  This exercise is taken from Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards which is a great book for anyone starting out as a drawer.

You need a sharp pencil, several sheets of paper and a timer.

- Set your timer to five minutes.
- Pick up your pencil and lay your paper out on your desk.  Put the tip of your pencil in the middle of your paper.
- Turn completely away from your paper, keeping your pencil in the middle of it.
- Hold up your other hand, your non-drawing hand.  Close it slightly so that the wrinkles are more pronounced and obvious.  Each of those wrinkles is an edge.
- Start your five minute timer.
- Now, find an edge in the middle of your hand.  Lock your eyes on it and very slowly begin following it.  As your eye moves along that edge move your pencil with the same pace and direction.
- DO NOT TURN AND LOOK AT YOUR PAPER.  Keep slowly following edges in your palm and keep working co-ordinate your pencil's movements with your eye's movements.
- Keep working until your timer goes off.
- DO NOT LOOK AT YOUR PAPER.  Without looking at it, crumple it up.  Reset your timer.
- Take your crumpled drawing and follow it's edges for five minutes.
- Repeat.


Contour Line and

For this assignment you'll spend a couple of weeks working on a drawing.  It will be made only of lines which follow edges on the subject.

To start with, you'll need to refer back to the page on Beginning A Drawing.  You want to think about how the subject is going to sit on your paper.  You'll also start with your lightest pencil, that's your highest numbered H pencil.  Very lightly begin laying out the general shape of the subject on your paper.