The two above pictures are blind, continuous line, contour drawings of my hand. We aren't supposed to name the object we draw, but for the posting's sake I will call the form my "hand". To do a blind contour drawing, I put a barrier between my eyes and my paper, and my hand in my lap. I had to pretend like my pencil point on the page were like my eyes following the lines of my hand. This was a particularly difficult assignment for me because of the continuous line part. I was not allowed to pick up my pencil until the form was complete. I was also not allowed to use my eraser to erase the lines and start over. In addition, I wasn't allowed to start and stop the pencil line. If I did, it would have looked like a severed body part instead of part of a whole. The "contour" part means that I drew all of the little details from the lines in my fingers to the fingernails. I realize that these drawings are distorted, but the distortion is half the beauty of the blind contour drawings. They are simply images of what your hand thinks your mind is seeing. For example, the little indentions on the sides of the fingers are supposed to be the bend lines in my fingers.
These two pages are examples of observed, continuous line, contour line drawings. Observed drawings are similar to blind drawings but I was able to look back and forth at my hand and what I was drawing. However, I was still not allowed to pick up my pencil, and I had to be sure to incorporate all of the detail of the contour lines into the drawings. Observed continuous line contour drawings still look somewhat distorted because I wasn't able to pick up my pencil. Overall, I'm very glad we did this assignment, because I got comfortable using my pencil and not being afraid to mess up.
