The brief

Refer to a photograph, or arrange a variety of household objects, or return to the collection from your rapid sketches exercise and conduct at least three semi-blind contour drawings until you are used to working without looking at the paper.  As they are semi-blind drawings you can periodically glance at your drawing to see what is happening.  Then produce at least four blind contour drawings of various objects or a still-life arrangement.

Approaching the exercise

Feeling out of my comfort zone it was a relief to start with semi-contour drawings.  I tried my best not to look at my references, especially for the outline of the figures.  I only looked when really needed, for example, the positioning of the feet and negative spaces.  Once I had the outline down, I occasionally looked to see the positioning of the glasses and the inner lines of the drawing.

I quite enjoyed the challenge and used a different reference for the third semi-blind contour drawing.  To draw the inside details, I had a quick look so I could position my pencil where the face should be, and then started drawing without looking. 

I then went onto blind drawing.  The first blind drawing is figure 3 on the right.  I concentrated to follow the reference contour with my eye and tried to follow the same pace with my hand while sketching.  The diagonal lines of the legs are a challenge and cause the start and end of the contour not to line up.

I decided to draw the same reference for blind drawings 2 and 3 (figure 5) to see if I could find another method to achieve a more accurate drawing.  In drawing 2, I tried to draw the mother’s face and hair first and then continued with the contour of the figures.  In drawing 3, I tried to focus on the contours only, but in the end, I had no clue where to add the details.

Moving onto a new reference, I tried to add the details in drawing 4 (figure 6) once I completed the outline.  This will take some practice, and my outlines are significantly off, so I decided to try the same reference again for Sketch 5 (figure 6).

Overall, this was an insightful exercise, and it will be good to make blind contour drawing a regular practice to hone my drawing skills.  Next time I try blind contour drawing, I will try to keep my pencil on the paper when adding the inside details as well.  This will create more lines, but it will be interesting to see if it will make a difference.