Sustained Contour Drawing Study

Hi everyone, today I would like to show you a drawing I did of an ornament in my house practicing the contour drawing technique.

Contour drawing is similar to the way lines flow on a map representing mountains. The lines follow the shape of the land mass and become close together as the land gets steeper. The same can be applied to drawing. This exercise is focused on improving your observational skills. It forces you think about the form of the object where it goes back or forward and how extreme this difference is.

The drawing below was done over a period of 3-4 hours and required a lot of patience. The exercise requires you only to look at the paper when there is a new starting point and it has to be lifted off the page. The idea is to have your eyes focused on the model as long as possible without looking down at your paper.

Although it was difficult I learned a lot from the exercise. It taught me to look at the object more clearly observing every little detail and will also help reduce the number of times I have to look at the paper when drawing while still being accurate.

The most difficult part was probably the patience needed for that amount of time and the way the drapery folded. It was sometimes difficult to see where the lines flowed on her dress.

Source

Thank you for checking out the post! :)

Ian,