Basic Art: Lesson 1: Contour Lines

Art is not a natural born ability. It is merely a skill that requires tons of practice and a trained eye. Anyone can become an artist and produce great pieces of work given that they put in the time and effort needed. As time goes on the work will become better and the time required to create it will be shortened.

The first lesson will be Contour drawings. More specifically (blind contour drawings). A contour line (for the purposes of this lecture) is a curved line that connects two points on the page. A blind contour drawing means that you draw a complicated object, such as your hand, without looking at the paper you are drawing on. The reason I chose this as my first lesson is because 1) you need to train your eyes to be very observant of the subject being drawn, 2) you have to train your eye and hand to work together, 3) everyones blind contour line drawings will not look like what they are supposed to so its ok if you think you suck at drawing.

OK! Lets begin!

Step 1: grab a piece of paper and a drawing utensil

Step 2: find an object (it doesn't matter how difficult you think it may be)

Step 3: place the paper and object away from each other, so that you won't be able to see the paper when looking at the object.

Step 4: pick a point on the object and place the pen/pencil at a corresponding point on the page (don't look!)

Step 5: follow the object (slowly!) with your eyes and as you move around the object with the eyes, move the pencil in the same direction/speed with your hand. (DO NOT LOOK)

Step 6: Look at your work when you're done..

(GASP!) it looks horrible!!! which is just fine.. and how it should be. The importance here is not in the result but in the method. If you followed the steps above exactly, you would've drawn an outline contour without lifting the pen or pencil. Once you do this enough times (at least 3 times) and feel comfortable with that you can start adding inner contour lines (without lifting the pen or pencil). After accomplishing that (at least 3 times) then you can move onto drawing blind contours and picking up the pen if you need to.

Well thats it for now.. remember to take breaks.. because if done correctly, you will be concentrating and straining your eyes for 30 minutes at a time. Do this often until you feel that your eyes can observe minute details and your hand/eye coordination is improving.