Making art with your eyes closed

So Handsome

We all know what happens if you don’t warm up muscles that are going to do hard work. They become stiff, and give you a lot of back-talk about not wanting to do what you’re asking of them. Next thing you know they are weak and flabby from disuse because exercise is just tooooo hard. What a difference with a little warm-up routine. Those same muscles are ready for lift-off, begging for a four minute mile and an extra 20 pounds on the leg press.

It’s the same with the brain before you start to draw or paint. Without a warm-up there will be awkward lines, muddy colors, proportions out of control, values heading over the cliff, and the left brain singing a little song about how you never could draw, and here is just another example.

So, here’s a warm-up for art exercise called blind contour drawing. Take a piece of paper and a pen, (a flair tip works well), put an object in front of you (your hand is always handy, ha ha), and without looking at the paper, begin to draw.  Relax and go very slowly, paying attention to and drawing every detail. Do not look at the paper, and do not lift the pen until you have completed the drawing. Relax, relax.  Don’t get ahead of the point where you’re drawing, and don’t worry about what is happening on that paper where you are positively not peeking!  Nothing should be happening in your brain except the impulse that is going to the hand that is drawing what the eye is seeing.  You will be surprised at the result.   Even if it’s unrecognizable, it will have some charm and strength to it, and you’ll think if you can do that without even looking, then the sky is the limit. Your right brain is ready for the hard work, and your left brain is speechless, which is precisely what you want. 

I’ve posted the very first blind contour drawing I did, showing, at least, that I have a sense of humor.  It’s my hand, and while it looks like it could use a good physical therapist, or maybe even a surgeon, I still remember that after doing a few drawings like it, I could sense that my hand, eye and brain were being nicer to each other and were ready to get to work.

If you want additional stretching after the blind contour warm-up, progress to modified contour drawings where you look at your paper every ten or twenty seconds while you are working. Some of the drawings will look good with color or shadows added, but it’s surprising how finished and fresh most of them look without anything else.  Betty Edwards, “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain,” has much more to say on this subject.