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."

Computers, Photoshop, Perfection and the Hand of the Maker

I have been told that drawing is dead because computers and cameras can provide all the images one would ever need! Well, first off that presumes that the only reason one would draw would be to create images. I hope you agree, or are at least are considering the idea, that drawing is as much about what the process is doing for our perceptions, our view of the world and our sense of  connection to all that surrounds us as it is to creating something we can frame and hang on the wall. But leaving that aside, let's just take a look at images—the product.

Photography is a fine way to create images. Here is a photo of the chair I drew the other day. I like the photo. By removing the background the graphic qualities of the chair are emphasized. This would be a good image to use if I were trying to sell the chair. It shows the style, the condition, the color and the shininess of the finish.

In Photoshop, I can apply filters to this photo to give it the look of a drawing—kind of.

Even a contour drawing.

I can even switch it up to emphasize the negative spaces.

As a graphic designer I have used these techniques extensively and I will be the first to tell you how much I love using Photoshop and Illustrator to create images.

But—

Even more, I love the look of a hand-drawn image because it is not perfect. It is not clean and perfectly proportioned. It is influenced by the hand of the maker, which is what gives all handmade work its soul and personality. Imperfect as it is, I think my little sketch of the chair is more interesting to look at and reflects something about my way of drawing; the choices I make; the parts I see well; the parts I don't see so well. Perfection may be overrated, in my opinion.

Am I wrong? What do you think?

Contour drawing

"The essence of drawing is the line exploring space." ~ Andy Goldsworthy 

I hope you have had a chance to explore the idea of "right brain drawing." Did you try drawing the faces? Did you get the idea of drawing, not the recognizable object, but the lines and angles and shapes without thinking about what they are?

Contour drawing is a great way of getting into your right brain and really observing your subject. Contour drawing is drawing the outer lines of the object. As much as you can, you follow the contour of the outer edges of an object with your eyes, as your pencil follows along. Don't think that you are drawing a bowl or a roller skate or whatever, just think about where the line is going. Think about the shape it is taking, the ins and the outs and where it curves gently or turns a quick corner. Remember that poppy I drew last week? That was a contour drawing, with a few details added.

Pick an object with an interesting shape. A key is a good small object to start with. Nothing that is iconic or, if it is, try to put the stereotypical image aside while you draw.

Contour drawings tend not to be perfect or even as realistic as you may want, but they are so good for training your eye to really see, and I find they often have a lot of character and a certain charming quirkiness. Strive for a confident line, not a wimpy or sketchy line.

Pick a more complicated object and draw its contours. Don't worry too much about exact proportions or proper perspective. Let your eye just move around the outlines. Don't add any shading. This toy had some good lines.

I think if I did a small contour drawing every day for a year I would get good at it! Maybe that's a good goal.

Shares

Janet Burns drew a sunflower. I love the sense of movement in the petals.

Karen Miller did a sketchbook theme page of  a couple kinds of flowers. Then added color.

 

Jean Shute drew her foot and shoe. Nice value range in this drawing. It's good to see a black black, grays and white in a drawing.

This is Jean's geranium. Isn't this a nice technique? Not sure how Jean did it, but if I were doing this I would start with a very light pencil drawing, add the inked dots, then erase the pencil.

Jean says, "The flower drawing is certainly not a quick way to draw, but it can be somewhat meditative to sit tapping on the paper until it comes to life.  Also easy to camouflage a misplaced line. "

Sorting out your brain for drawing

 

"An individual's ability to draw is... the ability to shift to a different-from-ordinary way of processing visual information – to shift from verbal, analytic processing to spatial, global processing. (Betty Edwards)"

My favorite book about drawing is Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. If you really want to learn to draw the very best advice I can give you is to buy this book and use it.

I will be suggesting some of the exercises from this book, but you really need your own copy. You won't be sorry.

Dr. Edwards explains that the brain is divided into two sides that house different kinds of thinking processes. The left, most commonly accessed half of the brain is the analytical part, and also includes language. The right, less-used side of the brain is the intuitive side and also where the functions of space perception lie. Her theory is that in order to draw effectively you need to access that right half and suppress the left side functions—at least while you are drawing. You, of course, need to figure out how to access that part of your brain and how you will know when you are doing it! Here is an exercise she suggests to feel the difference between the two ways of thinking as you draw:

Begin by drawing a simple silhouette of a face on one side of your paper (left side for right handed people, right side for left-handers.)

This does not need to be beautiful or even terribly realistic, but as you draw think about what parts of the face you are drawing, naming them as you go—forehead, eyebrow, dip where the eye goes, nose, etc. etc. This is the left brain approach of using language and memory of what a face looks like.

Now move to the other side of the paper and draw a mirror image of the first silhouette. This time concentrate on the position of the line, the angle, how long that angle goes until it changes direction. You are not thinking of a face, only following the contour of the line. Now you are working in your right brain.

When you have finished both silhouettes you can connect them, if you like, to form a goblet or candlestick shape.

Try it again, adding more detail to the silhouette by making it a grotesque face, like a witches face. Again, as you draw the first silhouette, name the features as you move your pencil.

Then draw the mirror image again, concentrating on the shapes and angles only.

Could you sense a difference in the way you were creating the second drawing? This is a great exercise to continue to work on until you can really tell you have made a transition from one part of your brain to another.

Shares

Lisa Flowers Ross sent a lovely flower drawing.

Kristin La Flamme, in the moving process, says everything is packed up. She must now draw from memory.

Janet Burns drew a shoe. I think she has done this before!

Drawing is like handwriting. Everyone's style is unique.

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!

Drawing a still life

When I was taking drawing classes in college we drew still lifes (or is it still lives? I've never known.) day after day. They would be a collection of objects set up on  a table with a light pointed at the assemblage. We would draw, then move and draw from a different angle. Drawing a still life is good practice at expressing shape and volume in a drawing. If you want to draw a still life, just set up a few items—three is good for a start—choosing items of differing sizes, shapes and values. It is good to have them overlapping.

Start by observing the basic shapes. See where the ovals are, the circles, the cylinders, cubes, pyramids, etc. Think of them in terms of three dimensional shapes, not just flat lines around the shape. Start by lightly drawing those shapes, paying attention to where they overlap, what the proportion of each shape is. I like to draw a full oval, for example at the base of the pieces. You get a nice feel for how it sits on the surface when you do that. Imagine more than what you see from your perspective. Imagine the back and the bottom and where the lines go as they disappear around the curve.

Once you are satisfied that everything is where it should be, the curves are right, the objects feel like they have some depth, then use a darker drawing pencil to begin to outline each shape. You can erase most of those preliminary lines once the outlines are in place. No need to get too obsessive about erasing. Just clean it up a bit.

Now start looking at how the value changes in each item, according to the lighting and the shape and start working in some soft shading with the side of the pencil. You can blend the pencil with a fingertip or a bit of wadded up tissue if you like.

Reflective surfaces always have highlights that look white. You can use a corner of your eraser to pick out those highlights, then clean up around the edges of things with your eraser and use your pencil to sharpen edges where they have gotten smudged or blended into the adjoining shapes.

I chose not to deal with the background for this drawing, but I added the shadows under each object. The shadows ground the objects and establish the idea that they are sitting on a solid surface rather than floating in air!

I can see some problems with this drawing. The white bowl isn't quite right and the base of it, especially, doesn't seem centered, but I am finished with this drawing. I will know a bit more about what to work on and observe more carefully when I do another.