Blind Contour Drawing

Kristen reminded me that blind contour drawing is really the best exercise for training your brain to see! She actually recommended negative space blind contour drawing, but that is a little bit like more than my brain can actually deal with, so for now I'm talking about blind contour drawing. Here's how you do it: set up some object to draw, then position yourself so that you have to turn your head away from your drawing pad to see the object. Here's my object.

Look at your pad and decide where you will begin drawing, then put the tip of your pencil or pen on the paper there, then do not look at your drawing again until you finish! Turn your eyes toward what you are drawing. Let your eyes move slowly around the object, and following your eyes with your pen on the paper, carefully drawing dips, curves, corner, details as you go. But remember, you are not looking at the paper—not even a little peek!

Now look at your drawing.

I guarantee it will be an odd-looking drawing. But the point of this is not to make a perfect drawing. The point is to train your eye and hand to work together. To shift into your right brain where you are seeing all the little dips and curves and translating the mass as it really looks, not as your short-cut brain thinks it looks. And then really look at your funny drawing. I think there is always something very truthful in these blind contour drawings. You get the proportions wrong for sure, but there is a spirit of the object that comes through and a nice sensitivity to the line.

Kristen has spent the past month moving from Hawaii to the East Coast, but sent me several drawings I posted earlier. Today I got this.

"Tada! My favorite mug is unpacked and in use. I see that I drew it less flared than in reality, and I remembered the text differently. Fun exercise though."

Drawing on location

Are you traveling this summer? We are taking a couple of road trips and I will take my drawing gear along as I always do. It isn't always easy to find the time for drawing when you are traveling with other people. You don't want to bring everything to a halt while you stop to draw something, but often I find a space of time here and there. Here is a drawing I made in Ecuador in 2004.

My daughter had climbed to the summit of Cotopaxi, the highest active volcano in the world the year before. She wanted us to experience part of it, so we hired guides to take us up Cotopaxi in a van to the highest point you can drive to. From there our plan was to hike up to the base camp—the yellow-roofed building in my drawing, just below the glacier. Incidentally, because Cotopaxi sits very near the equator, it is the point on all of the earth that is closest to the sun. We stopped at the parking area at 13,000 feet altitude to start our climb. When I stepped out of the van I was overcome by dizziness and nausea. My heart was pounding alarmingly. Altitude. The guides said I could not make the hike. (As if I didn't know that!) So, I stayed behind with the van. Fortunately I had my sketchbook in my pack and for part of the four hour wait, I sat on the back bumper of the van and drew my view of the peak. I took photos as well and, in fact had to complete my drawing from memory when snow and fog rolled in. I look at this drawing and I can feel the pressure on my chest, the sting of the thin, cold air in my nostrils and the buzzing in my head from the high altitude. I am so glad I took my sketchbook. Even now, I hold the book in my hands and love that it was there with me on that mountain and here with me today.

Here's a less dramatic drawing.

A couple of years ago I had some time to take a walk around downtown Boise, Idaho near the hotel where we were staying. We lived in Boise many years ago and I remembered this charming old building in an area of town that has been completely changed since we lived there. This building is one of the few buildings that remain from the time we lived there and it now houses a Starbucks coffee shop on the main floor. I bought myself a latte that I took across the street where I found a wall to sit on, drink my coffee and draw the building. As I was drawing the bicycle parked out front, the owner appeared, climbed onto it and rode away. I was happy that I had gotten the main details down before it vanished. I am always a little shy about drawing in public places, but I find that most people ignore me and the ones who stop to see what I am doing are always so nice and appreciative.

We are on our way to Idaho and Montana tomorrow. I have my sketchbook and supplies ready to roll. If you are on the road this summer, don't forget your drawing supplies.

Why draw?

I know artists who do not draw. They say they don't need to. They say that the advent of photography did away with the need for studying drawing. They say they work abstractly, so have no need to create recognizable images. They say they "can't" draw.  I respectfully disagree on all counts, but I will never convince them, I'm sure. I've tried!

Here are a few of the reasons I think drawing is beneficial.

1. It's fun. Just watch children draw. My five year old granddaughter can spend hours drawing the most magnificent, detailed drawings. She loves being in the flow of creativity and feels such joy and pride. Of course for adults who have attached feelings of inadequacy and expectation and stress to the process it isn't fun. —sigh— There must be a way to get rid of all that baggage and just enjoy the process again.

2. Communication. My Dad was a mechanical engineer, not an artist, but he communicated best with a pad and pencil. He could explain the most complicated machine by making a little drawing of it, but he extended it into explanations of everything. How I wish I had saved some of those little drawings of his.

Haven't we all had that experience of trying to describe some interesting thing we have seen, and when words fail, you grab a scrap of paper and just draw it?

3. Drawing is seeing! To me, this is the most wonderful, mind-expanding function of drawing. We all think we are observant. Some of us are, far more than others, but until you try to accurately draw an object, person, place, you have not fully observed it. Once you have drawn it you will never see it in the same way again.

Here's a little experiment to try:

Imagine some familiar object, that is not currently within your sight. Do you use a teapot or tea kettle? That's a good one. Think about it. DON'T GO LOOK AT IT! Now, try to draw it from memory. Put in as many details as you can. The drawing does not have to be beautiful or artful, just representative.

What are its proportions? Is it taller than it is wide or vice versa? Is there a handle? What is its shape? A lid? Does the lid have a knob? Does it have a spout that is somehow attached to the body? Where does it attach? At what angle does it stick out from the body of the pot? . . .

I drew my clear glass teapot from memory.

Then I went and got the real teapot to compare.

At first glance, I didn't do too badly, in my opinion. But look closer. Proportion is a little off. The real pot is taller than it is wide. The lid is close, but the little crescent cutout for the tea to pour out doesn't exist in the real thing. (This, by the way, is an example of how we draw things using assumptions to fill in the gaps in our memory. Sometimes those assumptions are more assertive than our actual memory) The shape of the pour spout is wrong. The reservoir inside, where you put loose tea is pretty wrong too. Most wrong of all is the handle. I can hardly believe I didn't remember that bold, distinctive handle. It is nearly a perfect half circle and connects rather cleverly to the metal band around the pot.

Try it. How did you do? Could you draw your car from memory? I couldn't. I think I can see it in my mind, but I couldn't begin to bring up details. I don't even know what the hubcaps look like. Does it even have hubcaps? I would know if I had drawn it.

Do you have other reasons for drawing? leave me a comment. Send me your drawing.  Help me out here!