Week 1 contour_lines

WEEK 1…. Part 2 (Contour Drawing)
1. THE FIVE ESSENTIAL SKILLS FOR DRAWING
2. INTRODUCTION TO LINE/CONTOUR DRAWING
3. DRAWING ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE BRAIN
4. BLIND CONTOUR
5. UPSIDE DOWN DRAWING

• Drawing or representing a three-dimensional
object on a two-dimensional surface requires in
essence a language translation.
• You are translating a three-dimensional form into
a language that will be effective on a two-
dimensional surface….Drawing paper. Some of
you may feel like your drawings are much more
successful when you draw from a photograph as
a reference. That’s because the three-
dimensional form has already been translated for
you.

FIVE ESSENTIAL SKILLS FOR DRAWING
1) identify edges,
2) recognize spaces,
3) calculate proportions and angles,
4) judge light from shadow, and
5) the unconscious skill of "pulling it all together".

Week 1_Contour Drawing
Three types of contour drawings we will be
covering in Drawing 1
1.Blind Contour Drawing
2.Modified Blind Contour Drawing
3.Contour Drawing

What are contours?
WHAT IS CONTOUR LINE?
A contour is the line which defines a form or edge - an outline. Contour
drawing is the place where most beginners start, following the visible edges of
a shape. The contour describes the outermost edges of a form, as well as
dramatic changes of plane within the form. Put simply, a contour line drawing
is an "outline drawing," that uses no shading.
A blind contour drawing is done when the artist looks intently at the EDGES of
an object, but rarely looks at the paper while the pencil moves. The goal of
contour drawing is to make a line that is authentic and true to what you are
actually seeing, and to train your hand to copy your eye's movement.
There are several different types of contour line drawings:

Lines
• All lines fall into either geometric or organic
categories, and those can fall into 3
subcategories of:
• 1. Descriptive line
• 2. Expressive line
• 3. Implied Lines

It’s also a type of DESCRIPTIVE LINES
• OUTLINE -
– An outline is a line
that surrounds a
shape.
– The lines of an
outline are usually
the same thickness
throughout.
– Also, only the outer
edges of the shapes
are defined.

DESCRIPTIVE LINES
• CONTOUR LINES-
– Also define the outer
edges of shapes.
– Unlike outlines,
however, contour lines
vary in thickness and
darkness.
– They also define the
edges of shapes within
a form.
– They give a greater
sense of depth to the
object.

Blind contour drawing
• Blind contour drawing is a method of drawing, in part,
popularized by Kimon Nicolaides, in his book The Natural Way
to Draw (1941), which presents itself as an effective training
aid or discipline. The student, fixing their eyes on the outline
of the model or object, draws the contour very slowly in a
steady, continuous line without lifting the pencil or looking at
the paper. The student may look at the paper to place an
internal feature, but once they begin to draw it, they do not
glance down, but follows the same procedure as for the
outline. A well-done blind contour drawing frequently has
sufficient quality and character to be preserved as a work of
art.
• The practice is still commonly taught today in both high school
and college art courses.

1) Blind Contour Drawing-continuous line, never
looking at the paper
2) Modified Blind Contour Drawing-80 percent
looking at the object, 20 percent looking at
object
3) Contour drawing-without regulation, but
should be similar to Modified

Why Why Why
would you make
me draw without looking?!?!?!

Can you see in the still-life here on the table that the orange is
in front of the vase?” “Yes,” replied the student, “I see that.”
“Well,” I said, “in your drawing, you have the orange and the
vase occupying the same space.” The student answered, “Yes,
I know. I didn’t know how to draw that.” “Well,” I would say
carefully, you look at the still-life and you draw it as you see
it.” “I was looking at it,” the student replied. “I just didn’t know
how to draw that.” “Well,” I would say, voice rising, “you just
look at it . . . ” The response would come, “I am looking at it”. .
. – Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

Every art teacher can likely identify with the kind of frustration Betty Edwards
experienced when she taught at Venice High School in Southern California in the
1960s. Many of her art students had a very difficult time reproducing familiar,
everyday objects. On the other hand, she found that when they were unfamiliar
with what they were drawing (as when they were copying an upside-down line
drawing), their reproductions improved considerably. Edwards was puzzled by this
discrepancy until the neurophysiologist Roger Sperry began publishing his findings
on functional differences between the left and right hemispheres of the human
brain in 1968.
Galvanized by these new studies, Edwards reconsidered the way she taught
drawing, eventually writing a book of intriguing exercises ranging from upside-
down drawing to using a plastic sheet to accurately trace 3-D objects onto a 2-D
surface. In 1979, the revolutionary book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain was
first published.

Drawing and Brain Hemisphere Laterality
Two primary themes are evident in Edwards’ book. First, she
does not teach the students how to draw but, rather, how to
see. This is necessary because, as Edwards realized, the
difference between a realistic drawing and a childlike one is
not one of motor coordination, but of how the artist
processes visual information.

To explain her theory on why so many people
have a difficult time drawing, Edwards cites the
popular belief, inspired by Sperry’s early work,
that “the human brain uses two fundamentally
different modes of thinking, one verbal, analytic,
and sequential and one visual, perceptual, and
simultaneous. . .”

According to this theory, the left hemisphere of the brain is
essentially verbal and analytic and the right is visual and
perceptual (“L-mode” and “R-mode,” to Edwards). The key to
drawing well, Edwards explains, is the ability to access the R-mode
at a conscious level, to liberate it from the dominant L-mode. In R-
mode, you are freed from the symbolic representations of objects
developed during childhood (such as seeing an eye as an almond
shape with a circle in the middle) that is a hallmark of L-mode.

If you can write you
can learn to draw
In fact, "drawing skills" don't even
require special manual dexterity - that
has little or nothing to do with drawing.

Definition
-Blind contour-
A drawing process where the eye is
trained to follow the contours of what is
being drawn, looking only at the subject,
not at the paper. In this process, the
hand moves the drawing tool in
synchronization with the movements of
the eye.

Applied to drawing, these skills specifically
become the ability to:
1) identify edges,
2) recognize spaces,
3) calculate proportions and angles,
4) judge light from shadow, and
5) the unconscious skill of "pulling it all together".

1.Blind Contour Drawing-looking only at the object
you are drawing and not at the paper
2.Modified Blind Contour Drawing-looking at the
paper 20 percent of the time or less
3.Contour Drawing-option to look at paper any
time, but with careful observation of subject.

1. Blind contour of the still life in the center of the room on 18x24
2. Complete the upside down drawing as shown in the video
3. Blind contour drawing of your hand
4. Modified blind contour of a plant, your hand, a pair of shoes.

Week 1 contour_lines

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