Exercise 2.3

Blind contour drawing

Semi-blind contour drawings

I used the photograph of the objects I had looked at for the rapid sketches exercise (2.0) to try some semi-blind contour drawings. It was an alien experience to stop myself looking at the page – I had never tried this before! I only allowed myself to look twice for each image, usually to adjust my pen to start drawing another object. The final images look a little rough, but I quite enjoy this effect. I can distinguish some of the elements, but there is a lot of overlap, making some marks seemingly redundant.

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Blind contour drawings

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I started with single objects, as I was quite daunted by the idea of not looking at the page at all (especially after my semi-blind attempts!). However, after the first couple of drawings, I started enjoying the unpredictable results. It was important to keep the pen close to the page – as soon as I lifted the pen up, I lost my bearings – and I worked quite quickly. Sometimes, I found myself listing the features or shapes I needed to draw (like the frog – I counted the ridges on its back as I drew them). The resulting images look distorted but full of character; they definitely have intrigue. I can imagine using this technique in the future to create character ideas.

After the individual items, I tried drawing a still life scene made up of items in my kitchen. I felt more confident trying this after my other attempts and accepted that the items would overlap and merge into each other. I really like the thicker pen drawing on the brown paper – I was conscious of making my marks bigger and more confident (I had been reserved before; I guess this is because I was not looking at the paper and did not feel confident ‘filling the page’ while not knowing how big the page was).

This task was certainly a new method to try, pushing me out of my comfort zone, and I really enjoyed it. The pressure for perfection disappeared and I ended up letting myself go for it, rather than being too careful. The resulting images are interesting and not like my usual style at all, which is probably why I enjoyed creating them so much. I feel like this technique would be perfect to loosen up before trying a more focused sketch of objects/people, or to see what weird and wonderful creations are possible when coming up with character ideas.