Blind Contour Drawing Famous Artists
This book is a window in to the process and experience of blind contour portrait drawing.
Blind contour drawing famous artists. Select portraits pulled from 22 moleskines collected over the course of seven years. It takes what one sees with one s eye and with study allows the hand to trace the image from one s brain. A student s blind contour drawing of a hand from the pacific university website.
Blind contour refers to a method of drawing in which the artist draws a line and never looks at the paper. One piece of paper one mark making tool one interesting object. Blind contour drawing is a favorite with drawing teachers to develop hand eye communication.
Blind contour drawing is a drawing exercise where an artist draws the contour of a subject without looking at the paper. Drawing i was after but this exercise a staple of drawing classes known as blind contour drawing has continued to teach me lessons about drawing long after high school. However with practice you will find that you will be able to accurately record an image on paper without looking at your hand as it draws.
Blind contour drawing is an excellent way to train the eye to draw what it really sees rather than what it thinks it sees. The student fixes their eyes on the outline of the. It is a teaching aid for high school art students and includes classroom activities a free downloadable pdf worksheet and inspirational artist drawings.
If that all sounds good to you read on for four ways to use blind contour drawing in your art. The artistic technique was introduced by kimon nicolaïdes in the natural way to draw and it is further popularized by betty edwards as pure contour drawing in the new drawing on the right side of the brain. What is important is the way blind contour drawing gets your mind off.
The blind contour drawing exercise is a fundamental tool that can help beginning artists create their first drawings as well as help experienced artists become reacquainted with the power of observation. Adapted from an article by allison malafronte. The end result doesn t matter so much that s not the point.
Hundreds of our favorite portraits full page spreads of behind the scenes photography and space to explore drawing your own portraits. This article contains exercises for art students who wish to produce contour line drawings cross contour drawings blind drawings and other types of line drawings. I pursue this method because of the ways it captures the essence of my subject.
A simple starting point. Contour drawing is essentially outline drawing and blind contour drawing means drawing the outline of the subject without looking at the paper while you re doing it.