How did she achieve this?!

[Xeon_OND]

Look at this vid here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjJhZ4DYh50

She's not even looking at the model and she's doing a blind contour drawing of the model but the result is way better than many non-artists who draw by looking at the model!!! I've a feeling some artists here can't even achieve such results.

Crap. Er.....from this video, is it true that the more you practice and perfect your blind contour drawing, the better you'll be able to draw?

Like if one day, I'm able to draw a decently looking image of a landscape or human face without looking at it, then that means my art skills will really progress?!

[Baron Impossible]

She's not even looking at the model and she's doing a blind contour drawing of the model but the result is way better than many non-artists who draw by looking at the model!!!

She does look at the model. It's the paper she doesn't look at. Don't ask me why. Art is hard enough without introducing deliberate handicaps.

[Farvus]

Blind contour drawing is just an exercise. You don't need to do it for years so that one day you'll be able to draw nice pictures without looking at them. The result on paper doesn't matter. It just forces you to pay more attention to model than to what you have on paper and be "in the moment" when drawing line. Otherwise you draw what you think something looks like rather than what it really looks like. Very common beginner mistake.

Once you get into habit of carefully observing what you draw, it's rather pointless to continue with it.

EDIT: She looks at the model. That's what this thing is all about.

[SoufMeng]

I've a feeling some artists here can't even achieve such results.Pointless. (http://themiddleoffice.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/glass_half_full1.jpg)


And, for emphasis, the only thing she does is precisely looking at the model. Check out the wikipedia entry if you're interested.

[B u r l]

i had to do this at college. i didn't learn a thing.

[Derek the Usurper]

Blind contour drawings generally look the same to me, assuming the artist got a likeness to the subject and not a blob. It's always shaky line work with poor symmetry, almost as if it's the same artist drawing them all.

They say it's supposed to improve hand-eye coordination, but how can that be when you are practicing an exercise which breaks the link between the two? You eliminate any visual feedback for what your hand is actually doing.

[Sekino]

That's one awesome caricature of Liza Minnelli!

[Ninjerk]

Blind contour drawings generally look the same to me, assuming the artist got a likeness to the subject and not a blob. It's always shaky line work with poor symmetry, almost as if it's the same artist drawing them all.

They say it's supposed to improve hand-eye coordination, but how can that be when you are practicing an exercise which breaks the link between the two? You eliminate any visual feedback for what your hand is actually doing.

That's the point, I think. I've not done blind contour seriously (done a couple sketches while I was awaiting a jury panel), but I would liken it to my having learned to swing a baseball bat when I was much younger.

The idea was always to "keep your eye on the ball," even as you began to swing. The hand-eye coordination came in when you (hopefully) successfully brought the fat part of the bat to the ball as it got in front of the plate without ever once looking at what your hands or the bat was doing.

[Xeon_OND]

Um, yeah, that girl in the video did look at the model (that's what blind contour drawing is about), but considering the fact that she didn't even look at what she's drawing on the paper and the drawing is still a pretty good sketch of a human's face, it's highly impressive.

I tried the same and all I got was an unrecognizable mess of lines (in my case, I tried on simpler things like erasers and scissors).

Seems that some people are just good at such crazy things.
Another example here: http://drawsketch.about.com/library/bl_blindcontour.htm

Notice how accurate the writer's blind contour drawing is. :D

[Elwell]

She's not even looking at the paper and she's doing a blind contour drawing of the model but the result is way better than many non-artists who draw by looking at the model!!! I've a feeling some artists here can't even achieve such results.

It looks like an absolutely standard blind contour drawing to me. Hers looks better than most because she's not an absolute beginner, that's all, and blind contours are generally a very early exercise. Their purpose to put the emphasis on the act of observation, rather than the final result of making a "good drawing." Once that lesson has been learned, though, there's not much purpose in continuing with the technique beyond party tricks.

[jrr]

i've been drawing blind ninja turtles since i was 10 years old. this isn't so impressive. doing this a few times and you'd be less impressed too.

[dcorc]

Blind contour drawing is possible because of proprioception
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprioception

It demonstrates that a factor in drawing is proprioceptive feedback of the position of your hand and arm - which is then usually integrated with visual feedback too - but blind contour drawing demonstrates it makes a greater contribution than most people might realise.

I'd also suggest it's one reason why when learning basic drawing its better to use traditional media than a digital tablet, as the latter imposes a proprioceptive remapping between the physical position of the pen (and your arm), and the visual position of the drawing-point onscreen.


Dave