Something a little different today. Blind contour drawing! 😊

Blind contour drawing is an excellent exercise to develop eye-hand coordination and to develop your drawing skills. It helps to sharpen your observational skills as it forces you to look at the subject. Some people also use it as a kind of meditation as it gives you chance to slow down and stay in the present moment. This is something I know I need to work on as I was finding myself drawing quite quickly on some of them today. Patience is definitely key here.  

So, how do you actually do contour drawing? Well, it's quite simple really. Firstly, you have to be prepared to accept that what you create will look like a jumble of scribbles and that's absolutely fine. Everyone's ends up looking that way, but the more you practice, the more you'll become pleasantly surprised at the results. Sometimes the outcome is far more rewarding than a drawing you've spent a lot of time on. 

Once you overcome that fear of it not looking perfect, you grab a pen or pencil then choose a point on your subject and follow its contours with your eyes without taking them off. At the same time your pen/pencil is continuously  following that same line, slowly and meticulously observing every single contour you can see, without lifting the pen/pencil off the paper.

As you're doing this it is tempting to look at the paper to see how you're doing but this only scuppers your concentration and  throws you off course. I have a method I use which prevents me from such temptation. I have a square cardboard cutout, about 10cm x 10cm, with a hole made through the middle for my pencil to fit into. This allows me to draw freely whilst not being able to see what I'm drawing on the paper. It's such a fun drawing exercise to do and really enjoyed letting go today. I took just a few minutes on each drawing. You can take up to 10 minutes on each but try not to make it anymore than that.

Whenever I've done this exercise I've always been amazed at how much more accurate the proportions appear to be of the subject I'm looking at, compared to if I was drawing it in the 'normal' way. This is because I'm taking the time to really 'look' at what's in front of me rather than looking up every now and again. These drawings are filled to the brim with energy and express a unique sense of character, which I absolutely love about this process. 

I've done a little blind contour drawing over the past few weeks whilst drawing the horses at the stables but found it quite difficult to do as, obviously, the horses kept moving. I think I may give it another go whilst drawing from life at the weekend 🤩🐴.