"Learning to draw means learning to see" - Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. "Learning to draw is really a matter of learning to see — to see correctly — and that means a good deal more than merely looking with the eye. The sort of ‘seeing’ I mean is an observation that utilizes as many of the five senses as can reach through the eye at one time." - Kimon Nicolaides, The Natural Way to Draw I knew about blind contour drawing before my vision loss. Didn't practice it much because, you know, perfectionism. It took a pretty drastic loss of vision to recognise the pointlessness of perfectionism, so once I could see again, I was ready to give it another try, which was fortunate, because my "normal" way of drawing didn't work any more. Something happened to the eye-brain-hand connection when vision was temporarily in abeyance and then monocular for a while. Even when I couldn't read the top single letter on the eye chart, there was enough handwriting muscle memory left for me to sign my name and write shopping lists, but, during the period of lost vision and recovery, somehow the connections that allowed me to draw and paint (and compose a reasonable shot through the lens) became scrambled. I could see all the leaves in detail as we drove along tree-lined streets, I could count every blade of grass and read ALL the number plates and signs (out loud!) but so far as actually making pictures went, I had to learn to see all over again. I started out with crayons and coffee cups. More on that another time. I went back to Betty Edwards' classic Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and some advice about getting back to basics from Danny Gregory and decided to give blind contour drawing another shot, too.
It's also calming. It can be a mindful, meditative practice. We're all about mindfulness these days. When it's hard to slow down and meditation is challenging, the blind contour focus on observation and slow drawing offers us a way into a calmer state. So long as we can let go of perfectionism. Blind contour drawing helps with that too. Knowing in advance that the result is likely to be weird and wonky, we can get comfortable with making mistakes, learn that an eraser is not necessarily our friend and enjoy plenty of "happy accidents".
Often, I find blind contour (and non-dominant hand) drawings can have a certain spirit, personality and vibrance that isn't always present in careful attempts at rendering realism. Even when they resemble a car crash!
Want to know more? You could go down the Google rabbit hole, but I recommend author Austin Kleon's thoughts on blind contour drawing as a good starting point and for people who work with little people, grab some ideas from Sarah Krajewski .
Would love to see your blind contour practice. Feeling brave enough to share? Tag @lightsplashes on Instagram or Facebook. Just have fun with it
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AuthorLight Splashes is a family affair, but it's me (Kathy) who'll do most of the banging on in the blog. (Important Photograhy Tip 1: Selfies always look better in black & white). Archives
March 2024
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