Creating a blind contour line drawing is a great drawing exercise. It is a classic for art instructors everywhere, yet many art instructors miss the point. Often, I ask my students if they've created a blind contour line drawing and most answer that they have. When I ask them the purpose of the exercise, the students are clueless. Blind contour line drawing has several benefits.
First, it improves hand-eye coordination. Hand-eye coordination is important in drawing for obvious reasons. Secondly, blind contour line drawing forces you to look at the object that you are drawing. Perhaps most importantly, it helps the artist to understand that representational drawing is all about observation. Without keen observation skills, the representational artist is lost. Remember, the first secret to drawing is that drawing is at least 50% observation.
Continuous blind contour line drawing has two rules. First, once your pencil is placed on the surface, you may not lift it again. Secondly, you may not look at the paper. In other words, you must try to move your pencil at the same speed as your eyes move over the surface of the contour lines of the object.
Blind Contour line drawing is a drawing exercise that can done almost anywhere. It can actually lead to finished drawings as well.
