What you see as an "edge" is not actually an edge, it's just our perception of an edge. So, if you are drawing this perceived edge, it helps to have in mind that the form continues on behind what we see as the limit. It's just a conceptual thing to keep in mind. Most people don't think about this and that can often become evident in their drawings, and make their drawings look way to "outlined" - they draw a thick heavy line all around the outer edge like some sort of boundary, and it just makes a drawing extremely flat and 2 dimensional. So..... hope this makes sense, it's a really subtle point, and if you want further clarification let me know.
'....what makes a good drawing or a beautiful drawing, is one that is beautifully observed '' i love that phrase. It will have great impact on my drawings. Thanks again.
Wow, thank you! That's so great to hear, I appreciate it! :) Contour drawing has helped me so much to control my drawing and get detailed, so hope it helps you in your work! thank you so much for watching
I just finished watching this video Ma'am and again I would like to thank you for all of your kind instruction. I know it must take great effort on your part to create a new video every week but believe me that there are so many of us that not only appreciate you and what your doing but also look forward to each and every video that comes out. As always I send you my warmest regards. God Bless!
Thank you so much for this @Roman ... this is great encouragement. Yes, it is hard to create these videos, but there is also a wonderful community of artists here and that makes it really exciting to engage with, I'm a bit behind in my videos, going to get one out this week, so stay tuned, hopefully publish it on Friday.
Very clear explanation of the topic. I like doing blind contour because of the fact it isn’t going to look like what you are seeing so it becomes a challenge.
Yes, me too - it takes away expectations, and control, which I like very much - it doesn't feel like I'm controlling the drawing which actually leads to better drawings haha!
Somewhat comforting in my later life to realise I was contour drawing beacause it felt right before I was taught a more mechanical process at art school. For me you are expressing your perception of the subject onto the paper not trying to make it photorealistic. Thank you for helping me to this realisation.
Thank you for the informative video. Really well done. I often will take my eyes off of the page and continue drawing to get more authentic and interesting lines in my abstract drawings. Helps unbalance a bit, and adds more intuition. Blind contour drawing is something Im going to do more often, very nice to know the concepts for the craft. Thanks
Thanks Justin, so glad to har this was useful! And interesting that you do this intuitively for more abstract drawings. I love that it adds a bit of unabalance, I feel that with that, the drawing is much stronger, more truthful, and funnily enough it helps me to get more accurate with shape and proportion. Hope you work with this approach more, and see where it leads you in your art! Thanks again for watching :)
Hi Siobhan! I am going to be showing this to my little, high school art class tomorrow and then we are going to do some blind contour drawing of our hands. I thought you explained and demonstrated things really well and I am excited for my students to see it. I was worrying about whether they would follow along to Nicolaides but as we don't have enough books I was/am likely going to read it. This video will make that process more successful. Thanks! 🙂🎨
Hi Peter! oh great!! I'm thrilled to hear that. Good luck and let me know how you get on. Biggest challenge most students have is 1). obviously: not looking at the page! and 2). drawing slowly. Both this ethings are biggest hurdles. The slower you draw the better chance to really tune into observation and start looking intently, so I would encourage people to focus on drawing slowly even if the drawing does;st get finished. Hope this helps. (also, this is a drawing drill - we should always think of it as a warm up or at least try to do lots and lots over time)
I brought this wonderful book years ago and was overwhelmed by it's rigorous schedule. I did some of the exercises and did see their value. it's time to revisit. Thank You!
Thank you so much Christopher! I'm so glad this prompted you to get back to it - i agree the schedule is a bit rigorous, take what you need from the book and apply it to your drawing :)
Thank you very much! I have always thought that what we draw should be look like the object that we are drawing to make us a artist. But you gave me a clarity regarding that. Once again I thank you for boosting my confidence.
Thank you Vijay! That’s great to hear, I would hope to teach you to draw what you see , instead of what the object looks like, because we need to see what you see. But you can also learn so much from the other approach, it’s good to know both! Thanks for watching :)
Thanks Gerardo! lol, it looks neat but I put all the mess behind the camera. you get extra points for appreciating the Blade Runner poster! haha... i found it in a random second-hand store, and it's double sided, from the directors cut, so not the original release, I love it though!! Thank you so much for watching, hope you experiment with contour drawing, it can improve your drawing and observation so much!
Hi, I find all of your comments very useful and so true. Thanks for this video and also FOR the suggestion YOU MADE ABOUT the book by Nicolaides. Since I have been practicing blind contour and contour (much harder for me) I find the results of blind contour way more interesting than my normal drawings. They are full of happy mistakes. t's great. By the way, thanks again for clarifying the difference between contour and cross contour.
Delighted to hear that Jerome, thanks for your message. I agree, blind contour drawing creates very beautiful drawings, particularly because they are so driven by observation.
This is an excellent instruction on contour drawing and drawing in general! Great point of view on drawing techniques as well as expression of fine art!
@craigusher thank you so much for this comment Craig, it's so great to hear that feedback. I have been mostly focused on creating online content this past year. Prior to that I was offering figure drawing workshops and hope to get back to that sometime soon! Really appreciate you watching this! Thanks again :)
That demo that you do at about 4:30, about how long did that take you? I'm finding that the times in The Natural Way to Draw of ~25min for one drawing is excruciatingly long & tedious
That drawing was probably 15 to 20 minutes but it was edited and speeded up for this video. The exercise of doing blind contour drawing is one that should be done extremely slowly. If at the end of 20 minutes you have drawn around the whole figure, then you are drawing way too fast!! With blind contour and contour drawing, draw even slower than you think you are drawing. It makes a big difference when you are drawing from life, though. I can imagine that drawing from a photograph will make the process seem tedious and long. When you are drawing the model from life, or any subject from life, and you use blind contour drawing, you get a very strong understanding or feeling of connecting to your subject matter. It doesn't quite come through in a photo. But, anyway, short answer - draw slow. What matters is looking and noticing. Also, stick with it, it definitely seems crazy at first, but remember it isn't something that you will do once, check it off a list and move on, it's something that needs to be integrated into your practice over time :)
Can you also discuss how and when you decide to shift your attention from the object to your drawing? How much is blind and loose/organic and how much is corrective?
It's kind of an intuitive process - i shift attention from the object to the drawing if I feel i need to check that I'm staying in proportion, but for the most part I try to stay focused on the object 80% of the drawing, and look back at the page to check my placement etc. In those moments, I'm not really drawing ie the pencil isn't moving. Once I look back again, the pencil moves on. Hope this makes sense :)
Practice!! :) it's a very, very concentrated process, and in fact can be really tiring after a session of contour, or blind contour drawing. So, it takes time to build up focus. Keep at it!
One of my favorite quotes is "don't create and analyze at the same time, they are different processes" i think this is so true for drawing. Letting go of analyzing as you draw can open up your talent and expression very powerfully. Thanks for this comment! Really appreciate it ❤
I think I would definitely follow the contours of those areas - for example if it's a shadow shape, or a strong change in value. But, I would most likely treat the line quality a bit different to the lines that follow the form. You don't want to make the drawing look odd by having heavy outlines of shadows. It's an excellent question though. Often the changes in value, or hue, or the shadows can give important visual guides to the structure ,so they don't have to be ignored if it's just a line drawing. It depends on the subject, but in general, i hope this answers your question?
@@Drawing-Life Yes it does, I appreciate the advice. It's very helpful to know what to consider while attempting to use contour this way. I have seen artists draw contours like this before, and it seems to be more of a preference thing. It's definitely something I'll have to experiment with.
@alijahmohammed hey Alijah thanks for this - this is actually a really good question! I am going to make a video on this topic. I'll try to post it next week, I hope you can check it out. To answer you quickly here - I don't really know how to say if a drawing is "bad" or not because that criteria is mis-leading. If you can understand drawing as a way of expressing, just like any other way of expressing then a drawing can't be bad if it represents a person's expression. The real question is: "is there such a thing as a good drawing" .... :)
good video but i don't understand what you mean at 1:05?
What you see as an "edge" is not actually an edge, it's just our perception of an edge. So, if you are drawing this perceived edge, it helps to have in mind that the form continues on behind what we see as the limit. It's just a conceptual thing to keep in mind. Most people don't think about this and that can often become evident in their drawings, and make their drawings look way to "outlined" - they draw a thick heavy line all around the outer edge like some sort of boundary, and it just makes a drawing extremely flat and 2 dimensional. So..... hope this makes sense, it's a really subtle point, and if you want further clarification let me know.
@@Drawing-Lifeagree
'....what makes a good drawing or a beautiful drawing, is one that is beautifully observed '' i love that phrase. It will have great impact on my drawings. Thanks again.
Thanks for acknowledging the beauty of blind contour!!!
Finally, this is by far the most informative, succinct description of contour drawing I’ve seen. Thank you.
Wow, thank you! That's so great to hear, I appreciate it! :) Contour drawing has helped me so much to control my drawing and get detailed, so hope it helps you in your work! thank you so much for watching
I just finished watching this video Ma'am and again I would like to thank you for all of your kind instruction. I know it must take great effort on your part to create a new video every week but believe me that there are so many of us that not only appreciate you and what your doing but also look forward to each and every video that comes out. As always I send you my warmest regards. God Bless!
Thank you so much for this @Roman ... this is great encouragement. Yes, it is hard to create these videos, but there is also a wonderful community of artists here and that makes it really exciting to engage with, I'm a bit behind in my videos, going to get one out this week, so stay tuned, hopefully publish it on Friday.
Wonderful. I appreciate your genuine enthusiasm, your calming demeanor, and your expert advice. I hope you keep making videos! :)
Thank you, so much, that's encouraging for me to hear :) I appreciate it!
Very clear explanation of the topic. I like doing blind contour because of the fact it isn’t going to look like what you are seeing so it becomes a challenge.
Yes, me too - it takes away expectations, and control, which I like very much - it doesn't feel like I'm controlling the drawing which actually leads to better drawings haha!
This video was extremely useful and informative. Thank you for the time and effort expended on this.
Somewhat comforting in my later life to realise I was contour drawing beacause it felt right before I was taught a more mechanical process at art school. For me you are expressing your perception of the subject onto the paper not trying to make it photorealistic. Thank you for helping me to this realisation.
Thank you for the informative video. Really well done. I often will take my eyes off of the page and continue drawing to get more authentic and interesting lines in my abstract drawings. Helps unbalance a bit, and adds more intuition. Blind contour drawing is something Im going to do more often, very nice to know the concepts for the craft. Thanks
Thanks Justin, so glad to har this was useful! And interesting that you do this intuitively for more abstract drawings. I love that it adds a bit of unabalance, I feel that with that, the drawing is much stronger, more truthful, and funnily enough it helps me to get more accurate with shape and proportion. Hope you work with this approach more, and see where it leads you in your art! Thanks again for watching :)
Hi Siobhan! I am going to be showing this to my little, high school art class tomorrow and then we are going to do some blind contour drawing of our hands. I thought you explained and demonstrated things really well and I am excited for my students to see it. I was worrying about whether they would follow along to Nicolaides but as we don't have enough books I was/am likely going to read it. This video will make that process more successful. Thanks! 🙂🎨
Hi Peter! oh great!! I'm thrilled to hear that. Good luck and let me know how you get on. Biggest challenge most students have is 1). obviously: not looking at the page! and 2). drawing slowly. Both this ethings are biggest hurdles. The slower you draw the better chance to really tune into observation and start looking intently, so I would encourage people to focus on drawing slowly even if the drawing does;st get finished. Hope this helps. (also, this is a drawing drill - we should always think of it as a warm up or at least try to do lots and lots over time)
Thank you! I’m just getting started in life drawing and your videos are very helpful.
Such good explanations.. been drawing for decades, still curious ❤
excited to try this
I brought this wonderful book years ago and was overwhelmed by it's rigorous schedule. I did some of the exercises and did see their value. it's time to revisit. Thank You!
Thank you so much Christopher! I'm so glad this prompted you to get back to it - i agree the schedule is a bit rigorous, take what you need from the book and apply it to your drawing :)
THANK YOU FOR MAKING THE CONCEPTS IN THE BOOK( THE NATURAL WAY TO DRAW SO CLEAR AND UNDERSTANDABLE.
Hi Carol! So glad that it helped! thanks for watching :)
what a wonderful description, thank you for your video
Thank you Joshua! That's great to hear, glad it made sense :) thanks for watching
So well explained!
Thank you very much!
I have always thought that what we draw should be look like the object that we are drawing to make us a artist. But you gave me a clarity regarding that.
Once again I thank you for boosting my confidence.
Thank you Vijay! That’s great to hear, I would hope to teach you to draw what you see , instead of what the object looks like, because we need to see what you see. But you can also learn so much from the other approach, it’s good to know both! Thanks for watching :)
thank you for this video! 😊
This was a very good video that clearly explains Contour drawing. Thank you.
Thank you Phyllis , really glad you enjoyed , thanks for watching! :)
Very informative and positive. Gave me the reasons for doing more contour drawing. Thanks.
That's so awesome to hear, thank you! And thanks for watching :)
I loved the video it is so helpful! I also liked your voice.
Thank you so much! :)
That is why we have to learn contour drawing! thank you!
Thank you for watching! :)
Very nice and help me a lot!
So glad to hear that Tony! thanks for watching :)
Thanks for this! One of the best contour videos I've found for to show my high school students!
Hi Alexis! That's wonderful to hear!. please do share with them, and let me know any questions. Thanks for watching
Your 6 mins video is better than my 3 hr lecture.
Wow! thank you so much :) really appreciate you watching this ☺️
I would definitely try this!
Also, your studio looks neat! And I see that Blade Runner poster 👀😆
Thanks Gerardo! lol, it looks neat but I put all the mess behind the camera. you get extra points for appreciating the Blade Runner poster! haha... i found it in a random second-hand store, and it's double sided, from the directors cut, so not the original release, I love it though!! Thank you so much for watching, hope you experiment with contour drawing, it can improve your drawing and observation so much!
Thank you!
Hi, I find all of your comments very useful and so true. Thanks for this video and also FOR the suggestion YOU MADE ABOUT the book by Nicolaides. Since I have been practicing blind contour and contour (much harder for me) I find the results of blind contour way more interesting than my normal drawings. They are full of happy mistakes. t's great. By the way, thanks again for clarifying the difference between contour and cross contour.
Delighted to hear that Jerome, thanks for your message. I agree, blind contour drawing creates very beautiful drawings, particularly because they are so driven by observation.
@@Drawing-LifeCareful and fast observation think but also, it seem,s by a "let go," a sort of short circuiting the brain... It's really enjoyable.
This is an excellent instruction on contour drawing and drawing in general! Great point of view on drawing techniques as well as expression of fine art!
Wow, thank you so much, that means a lot!! I'm excited to watch your beautiful painting videos, thank you for stopping by here!
Love your drawings and beautiful studio!
Lovely want to let you know your videos are so good informative and pleasant thanks for sharing your knowledge..!!
@ksamave2 thank you so much, that means a lot to hear! :) thanks for watching!
This is a very clear video nothing fancy and wonderfully paced for students of all ages, Where are you teaching? Besides online
@craigusher thank you so much for this comment Craig, it's so great to hear that feedback. I have been mostly focused on creating online content this past year. Prior to that I was offering figure drawing workshops and hope to get back to that sometime soon! Really appreciate you watching this! Thanks again :)
That demo that you do at about 4:30, about how long did that take you? I'm finding that the times in The Natural Way to Draw of ~25min for one drawing is excruciatingly long & tedious
That drawing was probably 15 to 20 minutes but it was edited and speeded up for this video. The exercise of doing blind contour drawing is one that should be done extremely slowly. If at the end of 20 minutes you have drawn around the whole figure, then you are drawing way too fast!! With blind contour and contour drawing, draw even slower than you think you are drawing. It makes a big difference when you are drawing from life, though. I can imagine that drawing from a photograph will make the process seem tedious and long. When you are drawing the model from life, or any subject from life, and you use blind contour drawing, you get a very strong understanding or feeling of connecting to your subject matter. It doesn't quite come through in a photo. But, anyway, short answer - draw slow. What matters is looking and noticing. Also, stick with it, it definitely seems crazy at first, but remember it isn't something that you will do once, check it off a list and move on, it's something that needs to be integrated into your practice over time :)
Can you also discuss how and when you decide to shift your attention from the object to your drawing? How much is blind and loose/organic and how much is corrective?
It's kind of an intuitive process - i shift attention from the object to the drawing if I feel i need to check that I'm staying in proportion, but for the most part I try to stay focused on the object 80% of the drawing, and look back at the page to check my placement etc. In those moments, I'm not really drawing ie the pencil isn't moving. Once I look back again, the pencil moves on. Hope this makes sense :)
It is zen meditation, so great but mastering it takes years!
Thank you it help a lot
Thanks Marya, I'm so glad to know that!! Thank you for watching :)
Pufff! If I do blind contours super slowly I get lost in the length of long contours any tips?? (in zones with more variation i'm kind of fine)
Nice
Blind turns out awesome drawings. They aren't supposed to be exact. That's what makes them come alive.
Can you discuss how you are able to concentrate and focus on the object? I tend to loose focus and skip ahead.
Practice!! :) it's a very, very concentrated process, and in fact can be really tiring after a session of contour, or blind contour drawing. So, it takes time to build up focus. Keep at it!
I love the idea of blind contour drawing helping with being too analytic.
One of my favorite quotes is "don't create and analyze at the same time, they are different processes" i think this is so true for drawing. Letting go of analyzing as you draw can open up your talent and expression very powerfully. Thanks for this comment! Really appreciate it ❤
What is your opinion about drawing contour lines for significant value/hue changes, like for lighting, and not just silhouette?
I think I would definitely follow the contours of those areas - for example if it's a shadow shape, or a strong change in value. But, I would most likely treat the line quality a bit different to the lines that follow the form. You don't want to make the drawing look odd by having heavy outlines of shadows. It's an excellent question though. Often the changes in value, or hue, or the shadows can give important visual guides to the structure ,so they don't have to be ignored if it's just a line drawing. It depends on the subject, but in general, i hope this answers your question?
@@Drawing-Life Yes it does, I appreciate the advice. It's very helpful to know what to consider while attempting to use contour this way.
I have seen artists draw contours like this before, and it seems to be more of a preference thing. It's definitely something I'll have to experiment with.
Basic to all drawing. 1st step
hi
Who is here for work
you know pat phillips?!?!?
Can you teach an untalented person like me?
there is a thing called a bad drawing
Why the hell you comment here Alijah 🤣
@alijahmohammed hey Alijah thanks for this - this is actually a really good question! I am going to make a video on this topic. I'll try to post it next week, I hope you can check it out. To answer you quickly here - I don't really know how to say if a drawing is "bad" or not because that criteria is mis-leading. If you can understand drawing as a way of expressing, just like any other way of expressing then a drawing can't be bad if it represents a person's expression. The real question is: "is there such a thing as a good drawing" .... :)
what are your pronouns💗💗💗
she/her etc.... :)