Blind Contour Drawing

Right now in Grade 10 Art we are starting the introduction to portraiture, beginning with blind contour drawings. Blind contour drawing is a method used widely by art teachers, where an artist draws the contour of a subject without looking at the paper. This technique was introduced by Kimon Nicolaides and further popularized by Betty Edwards.The student fixes their eyes on the outline of the model or object, then tracks the edge of the object with his or her eyes, while simultaneously drawing the contour very slowly, in a steady, continuous lien without lifting the pencil or looking at the paper.It was said by many that this technique improves students drawings because it causes students to use both senses of sight and touch and that blind contours creates a shift from left mode to right mode thinking. 

This is an example of a blind contour drawing because it is clear that the artist did not lift his pen/pencil off the page in order to create this. He/she looked for the edges and details of the hand and paid a great deal of attention to it therefore the image in accurate. 

Although some may think that this is an example of a blind contour drawing it is not. This is because the lines drawn are very sketchy and the proportions are too accurate and perfected. In order to create this image the artist would have to be looking at his page occasionally.