une peinture par jour: Contour Self -Portraits- Looking and Blind

I'm in a new school! I've been so busy settling in that I haven't updated this in a long time...so now I have lots of projects to share.

I began both my Art 1 and Drawing classes with a unit on contour drawing- I always do because I think it so important and the cornerstone for so much that follows! Contour drawing is drawing only using lines from observation. Blind-contour drawing is an exercise where an artist draws the contour of a subject without looking at the paper.

When drawing self-portraits, students fixed their eyes on the outline of their faces, then tracked the edge of the object while simultaneously drawing the contour very slowly, in a steady, continuous line without lifting the pencil or looking at the paper.

Art Educators have different ideas of why blind-contour drawing is an important method of drawing for art students. Some suggest that the technique improves students' drawings because it causes students to use both senses of sight and touch. Others suggest that pure contour drawing creates a shift from left mode to right mode thinking. The left mode of the brain rejects meticulous, complex perception of spatial and relational information, which permits the right brain to take over. Blind contour drawing may not produce an easily recognizable drawing, but it helps students to draw more realistically from observation rather than relying on memorized drawing symbols. Blind contour drawing trains the eye and hand to work as a team, and it helps students to see all of the details of the object.

I always love looking at the portraits of the blind drawings next to the ones that they observed. Here are some of the faces of Wayland High School- Art 1 and my Drawing and Advanced Drawing classes.