ART 244

Blind Contour Drawing — Week 2 (04.22-04.27)

My second week of blind contouring went by surprisingly quick. As I stated in my post for the first week, I have shifted completely to a traditional medium—in this case, a 9” x 12” sketchbook and a double-sided marker—for my contouring and I don’t regret this decision. Although I have the flexibility and choice to choose a different prompt per week, my friends sent me a lot of lovely, complex photos of their garden flowers, so I compiled them into a large folder of references to use. So far, I’ve been choosing complicated, abstract flowers that have many petals, clusters, or leaves so that I have a lot to draw. Some of these photos come with a background that I normally add in when I think I’m done with contouring the flower.

This week’s references, however, are slightly different. I actually spent two days using a still life reference in front of me so that I could compare it to my photo references, which typically produces flat results since it’s a two-dimensional image. Due to the weather, I wasn’t able to draw outside, so I used showpieces and fake flowers as a reference instead. Despite them being synthetic, I’m sure they weren’t any different than real flowers. I really enjoyed drawing with a still life reference, especially since the flowers in the vase were extremely intricate and complex.

This is a piece based on a photo reference I had. This was done before I tried a still life reference.

Before I dive into the comparison between my photo reference and real time reference, I’d like to say that my style for blind contouring as drastically changed. I knew I just needed some more practice and a lighter hand, so I’m really satisfied with how this week’s pieces turned out. Something I changed was the way I started my line. I liked starting from the center of the page and working my way around it since most of the flowers were centered in the original photos. However, instead of breaking my lines and starting somewhere new whenever I wanted to draw another part of the photo, I dragged the original line I started with and moved towards wherever I wanted to draw next. That way, the lines were still connected with each other and in my opinion, made the pieces more cohesive than they were last week. I also changed the tool I was using to a double-sided marker that had a thick nib on one end and a thinner one on the other. For my 9” x 12” sketchbook, I normally used the thicker nib since the paper was spacious itself. However, I drew one of my pieces on a 6” x 8” sketchbook on my desk one day so I used the thinner nib for that one. I have yet to try applying pressure to the pen and creating a variety of lines with strictly one size.

If anything, one difference I see between these pieces is the variety of lines and depth in each drawing. I was able to see many angles and perspectives while using a real-time reference—in fact, there were so many perspectives that I plan to use the same flower vase again next week but try again at a different angle to see what’s changed. I don’t think I captured enough perspective in these drawings—they were done blindly, after all—but I know that the drawing based on the real-time reference is much more complex than the one based on the photo reference. I like both, but there’s something about the left piece that stands out to me more than the right one. The right piece was done using a thinner marker, and although the reference photo was beautiful (my friend’s hand was holding a flower in the original picture and I tried my best to capture her fingers through layered lines) at the end of the day, the photo is flat, so there’s not enough depth for me to capture. You could say the right drawing is not as lively as the left, since I was only able to see it the way it was taken—and not in any angle other than that.

Overall, I’m really enjoying this plants theme. I’m not sure if I want to try something else, but I’m actually interested in clothing folds now that I think about it. I think clothing drapes and folds are almost as complex as petals can ever be, so I may try that out for next week. I’ll be sure to use plenty of real time references if I do.