Blind Contour Drawing help

[khal]

Hi guys,

I need help with long sessions of blind contour drawing. I'm following the instruction in the book The Natural Way to draw but I can't stick to the rules. In Section7 of the book as exercise you must draw without looking at the paper a single model for 5 hours (one draw of a single person who the student must draw in 5 session long one hour). I'm at hours 3 and I'm half way of a second draw (with a different model) because I can't stand Blind Contour Drawing -.- I draw too fast and I cannot help myself. . .Anyone experienced the same problem? any tips?

[AdrienneRose]

5 hours?! Holy crap. That is a long time. I haven't ever had an assignment to do for 5 hours of blind contour! That's just... crazy, to me. lol

Anyway, it helped me to figure a way that it was impossible for me to see what I am drawing. Cover it somehow. And GO SLOW. Practice going slow. Look at every detail and try to get your hand in tune with your eyes. It's difficult, but it can be very fun!

BUt 5 hours... that's... just ... so long.

[khal]

5 hours?! Holy crap. That is a long time. I haven't ever had an assignment to do for 5 hours of blind contour! That's just... crazy, to me. lol

Anyway, it helped me to figure a way that it was impossible for me to see what I am drawing. Cover it somehow. And GO SLOW. Practice going slow. Look at every detail and try to get your hand in tune with your eyes. It's difficult, but it can be very fun!

BUt 5 hours... that's... just ... so long.

yep 5hrs it's long and painful xD I will try to go slow and focus on details. Thanks a lot Adrienne!

[ClockworkLives]

I just started working through that book - other than the blind contour issue, how do you like it so far?

I am doing shorter ones right now, but what is helping me is to pretend that my pencil is on the actual object and that I am outlining it.. when I can concentrate enough to manage this, it slows me down a lot. Also, to make it more fun for yourself, you can study line quality at the same time and vary the pressure on the pencil depending on how prominent you want the edge to be.

[khal]

I just started working through that book - other than the blind contour issue, how do you like it so far?

I am doing shorter ones right now, but what is helping me is to pretend that my pencil is on the actual object and that I am outlining it.. when I can concentrate enough to manage this, it slows me down a lot. Also, to make it more fun for yourself, you can study line quality at the same time and vary the pressure on the pencil depending on how prominent you want the edge to be.

To be honest I love this book. The exercise are good and the schedule will help you to create a training routine. I'm drawing one hour and half a day (sometime I skip for different reason but most of the time I do my daily exercises) and my lines are improving. Even my "perception" of things and their proportion is quite better than before. Now I'm section 9 and I can say that I'm really enjoying the book

[herionz]

I've recently started doing similar exercises on blind contour drawing and have realized the same thing, that I tend to draw them too fast and they don't come out well, I think that's one of the purposes of the exercises, that you have to try to abstract yourself and look closely at what you are trying to draw, it's like meditation, try to relax and focus, every time you see change in direction try to look it up a few times before lying down the line and go slowly before placing the next one, try to visualize how you want to do the line in your mind before moving your hand (that felt kinda zen... XD). But at least that's what I'm feeling about it, and I might be wrong , let me know if you also feel something similar when you have tried a few more times and cheers!.

[khal]

I've recently started doing similar exercises on blind contour drawing and have realized the same thing, that I tend to draw them too fast and they don't come out well, I think that's one of the purposes of the exercises, that you have to try to abstract yourself and look closely at what you are trying to draw, it's like meditation, try to relax and focus, every time you see change in direction try to look it up a few times before lying down the line and go slowly before placing the next one, try to visualize how you want to do the line in your mind before moving your hand (that felt kinda zen... XD). But at least that's what I'm feeling about it, and I might be wrong , let me know if you also feel something similar when you have tried a few more times and cheers!.

I meditate every morning and YES it feels like meditation In the last couple of session I've discovered that is simpler if you try to "move the hand with the eyes". Sounds crazy but If you think about it, It can work. You have to align the mind with the hand, using the eye like laser: "ok my eyes are on that surface,you feel the surface and follow the curves. The hand is a mere tool like a seismometer". Starting with this mind set helped me a lot

P.s. sorry for my bad english I hope the the core concepts are clear

[herionz]

I meditate every morning and YES it feels like meditation In the last couple of session I've discovered that is simpler if you try to "move the hand with the eyes". Sounds crazy but If you think about it, It can work. You have to align the mind with the hand, using the eye like laser: "ok my eyes are on that surface,you feel the surface and follow the curves. The hand is a mere tool like a seismometer". Starting with this mind set helped me a lot

P.s. sorry for my bad english I hope the the core concepts are clear

Don't worry I'm also not native English speaker (and I also make a lot of grammar mistakes/typos and such) but I understood what your wrote down pretty clearly . The laser metaphor felt accurate! You can also try to do something else which is trying to draw the contour but not going from point "A" all around the subject and getting back to the start (which is how is supposed to be done, I think, maybe I'm wrong), and what you can try instead is to draw the lines but as a whole, like trying to draw some lines from the upper side, moving to the bottom, jumping to another side, but that's more trickier and it's just some alternative way I started to do for fun . Cheers!

[khal]

Don't worry I'm also not native English speaker (and I also make a lot of grammar mistakes/typos and such) but I understood what your wrote down pretty clearly . The laser metaphor felt accurate! You can also try to do something else which is trying to draw the contour but not going from point "A" all around the subject and getting back to the start (which is how is supposed to be done, I think, maybe I'm wrong), and what you can try instead is to draw the lines but as a whole, like trying to draw some lines from the upper side, moving to the bottom, jumping to another side, but that's more trickier and it's just some alternative way I started to do for fun . Cheers!

Yes I will try that! thanks!