I taught my last Osher figure drawing class of the spring semester last Friday. We focused on using blind contours to loosen up our lines & to connect our eyes and hands with our creative model, Kathryn.
In a blind contour drawing, you look only at who or what you're drawing, and never at your paper, so you have to let go of creating "pretty pictures" and allow the process to take you to a new place. We began our drawings with blind contour, and after 3 minutes, we modified our approach and allowed ourselves to look briefly at our paper to register our lines in the right places.
We used two different colored chalks or pastels for each drawing -- one color for the blind contour, and another for our modified blind contour drawing. The process was meditative and calming once we let go of needing to create an outcome. And, we found that it helped us to liven up our lines in subsequent drawings. This approach produced abstract and powerful drawings.
I look forward to teaching Figure Drawing in Osher's summer semester starting mid-May. Until then, I will offer some online Friday morning live art sessions via Zoom. You can find out more by going to the
Osher at CMU Figure Drawing page of my blog.
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| I received a box this week stuffed with brown packing paper that I used for my drawing paper during the online class. The camera likes mid-toned paper best. White paper overexposes on the webcam. |
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| I used yellow chalk for the blind contour and blue for the modified blind contour. |
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| A longer pose drawn with compressed charcoal. |
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| For homework, I asked students to do 3 drawings of hands & feet. These are my hand drawings, done with a focus on contour lines. |
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