Pencil (B, 2B or 3B), biro or fibre / felt tip pen (try all and more if you can to see what you prefer) Paper: A4 sized (or larger) paper, newsprint or sketchbook Materials needed for a blind contour drawing exercise: You can be very strict with yourself and not look at your drawing hand until you have finished the drawing (this only works well with very quick drawings) or have a couple of quick looks while your pencil or pen is off the paper before you continue. It is a simple exercise that takes a bit of practice to get used to. I personally do lots of quick blind contour drawings (that take a few minutes at a time) rather than a few long ones, as I find these produce fresher and more interesting drawings. I recommend no more than 10 minutes for each drawing to start with, as you need plenty of concentration for this exercise. You can also decide how long you do this exercise. One of my most surprising and, what I consider, successful blind contour drawings that brings together the essence of the subject matter and my own visual style / language was a portrait of a man’s head.īlind Contour Drawing: Portrait by Gillian Hebblewhite The results can be very unexpected and surprising, which is what appeals to me. I’m not going to lie – this exercise is going to create some drawings you may consider messy and imperfect, don’t worry – this is how you develop your drawing skills and become a better artist. This is perhaps because you have to let go of the idea that everything you draw must be perfect. As you develop your practice of blind contour drawing you will also start to see how you personally view the subject matter in your drawing, which forms part of your individual visual style or language that you can develop.Īlthough it is a simple exercise in theory, it is a hard one to do if you are a beginner. This creates an element of surprise in your drawing and allows you to experiment and play with your drawing.

When you first start blind contour drawing you don’t have a lot of control over what you are drawing. The first contour drawing (blind) allowed me to successfully create further drawings below it, a seen continuous-line drawing and observational sketch, while keeping the important elements of the shell I had observed. The shell drawings were part of some initial drawings in my sketchbook for some cabinet of curiosity artwork.

The blind contour drawing of the shell (top drawing) took seconds to create, but still capture the essence. My blind contour drawings of a boy, a shell and portrait are some examples from my sketchbook. They allow you to loosen up, experiment and play while also allowing the essence, the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality, of the subject matter (which determines its character), to shine through in your drawing. Gesture, in drawing terms, means ‘the action of the hand and drawing tool as they follow the movement of the eye while it scans’ the object/s or figure/s searching for meaning (Stanyer and Rosenberg, 2003:10).Ĭontour drawings certainly form an important part of my preparatory work and I find they are good initial warm up exercise when you first approach a new subject matter. Contour drawings are part of what are called gestural drawing techniques. ‘Contour’ simply means the outline, edge or line that defines or bounds a shape or object. Blind Contour Drawing: Boy by Gillian Hebblewhite An introduction to blind contour drawingīlind contour drawing was a technique highlighted by Kimon Nicolaïdes in his book ‘The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study’ (1941) (source: Oscarcerrato.files).

Hand contour line drawing