Lots of Blind Contours

I was first introduced to "blind contour" drawing in high school and have loved it ever since. Just recently I learned about Niff and Sutter's Blind Contour First Friday. Niff and Sutter are the authors/illustrators over at Inkfinger, a fabulous blog. They choose a topic for the first Friday of every month for a blind contour drawing and people participate and share their results. I didn't get on the list for this month but I'll be participating from now on! Now, if you think I can't draw worth a hill of beans based on these sketches LOL let me tell you what a "blind contour" drawing is. A blind contour drawing is made by looking only at your subject, you're not allowed to look down at your paper and you're not allowed to lift you pen off the paper, the drawing must be made in one continuous line. You might be thinking at this point "what good is that? The results are terrible!!" This exercise is not about results it's about training your eye and your hand to work together. Danny Gregory's book The Creative License, explains and takes you through the process in detail if you've never done it before. It's actually a lot of fun and really produces tremendous results in increased skill if you dedicate time to these and do them reguarly. I labeled all the drawings but I don't know how ledigible the writing is in the scan so here's a list of some of the things I drew. See if you can pick them out. Windchimes, lounge chair, geraniums, gas grill, flood lights, a jar, the crank handle, my dog. These were all done in a hardback Canson sketchbook, 9x12, with a black uniball vision pen.




sketching
drawing
art
blind contour