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Draw without looking at your paper

When you draw without looking at your paper, it's called blind contour drawing. This is a drawing exercise where an artist draws the contour of a subject, by drawing the lines of the subject, without looking at the paper. The French word contour means, “outline.” 

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This is an exercise to help you become better at observing what you draw as well as improve your hand-eye coordination. Do not worry about what your drawing looks like, this is practice and the drawings look silly!

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Remember:

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•Take your time, go very slow

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•Keep pencil and eye in unison - trace your object with your eye and slowly move your pencil 

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•Try not to lift up the pencil

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•Eyes on the subject, don’t look away

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•The process is more important

    than end drawing

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What you'll need:

Paper, pencil, and paper plate

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Create a blind contour drawing. You can draw your nondominant hand, a potted plant, a stack of books - anything that has a lot of lines and will stay still is a great subject matter for this. If you have a paper plate, poke a hole through it and use it as a shield to prevent yourself from looking at your paper (see photo below).

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This is an exercise to get better at drawing, practice and have fun with it! No stress

How to trace your eye & pencil

Go slow, watch an example

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These look silly! This is Mrs. McKeon's blind contour drawing <----

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