I had never heard of ArtTutor.com, but recently discovered it via a YouTube video, after I was looking for an online grid tool to use on some of my photos. (I first learned of using grids in Betty Edwards’ Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.) After browsing — and buying a drawing course — I decided to get the membership. It certainly appears that it might be easier for me to “get” some drawing fundamentals if I can watch a skilled artist do it.
We’ll see!
These drawings are from an exercise found in Chapter 6 of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (4th ed.) by Betty Edwards. Essentially, you “copy” or “trace” your non-dominant hand (which is holding the plastic picture plane) using a dry-erasable marker. You are to include the major lines in your hand, including wrinkles.
The lines are fairly sloppy because the marker actually didn’t work that well on the plastic, and there’s a grey shadowy line along the drawn line, due to the overhead light being on when I took the photos of the drawings (which are now wiped clean off the plastic picture plane).
After a number of practice drawings, the next step of this exercise is to use the picture plane drawing as a model while you draw the pose on paper.
Above, on the left, are “modified contour” drawings of my left index finger (and all its associated wrinkles) and my right index finger (yes, drawn with my left hand). Betty Edwards discusses this kind of drawing in her book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (4th edition). The drawing on the left I did years ago and is (my attempt at) a “gesture” drawing of cabernet sauvignon based on Kimon Nicolaides’ posthumous book The Natural Way to Draw. The artists in the various books I have all say different things about contour drawing (and gesture drawing, when applicable).
Garcia and Purcell
Garcia, on p. 26 of Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner, Revised (15th anniversary ed.), doesn’t specifically define contour line drawing but says you need to study your subject first, and that you should draw slowly, use long firm lines and “turn all crisp edges into line”. She does not mention gesture drawing at all.
Similarly, Purcell in Your Artist’s Brain discusses contour drawing on p. 50-51 of his book, and has a similar viewpoint to Garcia. He also does not mention gesture drawing.
Dowdalls
In Drawing School: Fundamentals for the Beginner, Dowdalls delineates between the two methods of drawing, saying, “Gesture drawing is a very quick, all-encompassing glimpse of the subject. Contour line drawing is a slow, methodical, detailed observation of the subject.” He finds both methods useful.
Nicolaides
In The Natural Way to Draw, Kimon Nicolaides takes a completely different approach. He says on p. 15 of his book that, “In contour drawing you touch the edge of the form. In gesture drawing you feel the movement of the whole.” He says in gesture drawing you should draw what the object is doing, and that it may not even look recognizable to someone when you are done. (And, in fact, they do look like scribbles.) In fact, he argues first for a focus on gesture drawing, and feeling the energy of the subject well before doing any more realistic drawing, saying, “Gesture is movement in space. To be able to see the gesture, you must be able to feel it in your own body… IF YOU DO NOT RESPOND IN LIKE MANNER TO WHAT THE MODEL IS DOING, YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU SEE. If you do not feel as the model feels, your drawing is only a map or a plan.” (p. 15-16)
Edwards
Betty Edwards discusses Nicolaides in chapter 6 “Perceiving Edges” of her book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (4th edition). She indicates that she uses a “variation of Nicolaides’s contour drawing method that is somewhat more drastic. I’ve called the method ‘Pure Contour Drawing’.” Her “pure contour” drawing has similarities to Nicolaides’ gesture drawing in that the results (say, in drawing your hand without looking at the paper) end up looking similar to scribbles.
But her “pure contour” is more of a deep meditation on the subject –if drawing your hand, for example, you draw every single line and wrinkle you see – while Nicolaides gesture drawing has more obvious energy, even with a seemingly static subject like a lighthouse.
Edwards believes drawing of this sort is “the best exercise for effectively and efficiently enabling students to later achieve good drawing.” When she has skipped this exercise because the students hate it, she has found the students don’t do as well later in the course. She speculates that pure contour drawing “permanently change[s] your ability to perceive” perhaps because the analytical, categorizing, naming mode of your brain “drops out”, leaving the nonverbal, spatial mode to take over.
Having done the exercises in Edwards’ book, I can speak to it being intensely restful, a plus for these covid-19 times. It sure beats coloring, and if it helps me to see and perceive more deeply the objects right in front of me, that is all to the good.
I attempted to draw the pail last weekend.
The first lesson was to do 3 contour (line) drawings of a wire (bent differently each time), with the first being in pencil and the remaining in pen. Well, my pen’s ink is fading, so I went back to pencil, and added some shadowing for the last sketch.
These sketches I made last night of the stack of 3 books on the messy coffee table. In the first sketch (upper right), the perspective looked off. I then realized the actual shape of the top book — from where I was seated — was more square than rectangular, and made adjustments in the second sketch.
Drawing lines is harder than I thought – at least when I overthink them. I was using my brand-new book Beginning Drawing Atelier: An Instructional Sketchbook by Juliette Aristides, which I bought on Amazon. An “atelier” is an artist or designer’s studio – something I did not know. Anyway, the author does not stand on ceremony – you draw right in the hardbound book, and using an HB pencil (that’s the standard #2 pencil we’re familiar with from school). In the first chapter, she has you to practice vertical lines, horizontal lines and semi-circular lines, from one point to another point.
My vertical lines, especially when I was drawing down from point “A” to point “B” (as opposed to up from “B” to “A”), tend to wobble and waver. Until I started pretending I was once more a 5 year old – as a child, I drew my lines exultantly.
The circular lines, too, wavered and squished a bit. It all seems harder than it looks – but I suspect that’s due to my adult doubts and lack of confidence.
I read a tip, via browsing on Amazon, from Carole Massey’s Drawing for the Absolute Beginner, in which she refers to Picasso having instructed young artists to draw a perfect circle. And that it’s more effective to move your arm, in drawing the circle, from your elbow or shoulder rather than your wrist. So, I was practicing those today. My circles are still fairly elliptical, and I was drawing them way too fast, anyway. I also tried drawing them with my left hand, and seemed to be more accurate with my left rather than my right hand.
But I was also working somewhat quickly as a form of confidence – doubting my ability to create a circular line could potentially mess up my circle.
BetterLateThanNeverArt 