While doing the Kick in the Creatives – May non dominant hand drawing challenge I played around with a couple of sample blind contour drawings. They’re no masterpieces for sure, but they were the inspiration behind my series of blind contour portraits.

Blind contour drawing is an exercise where you draw the contour lines of the subject, without looking at what you’re drawing or taking your pen/pencil off the paper. So what’s created is a continuous line drawing that you’ve created based on what you’re looking at, not what your brain thinks it’s seeing. It’s an excellent warm up exercise to create harmony between your eyes and your hand.

The lady with the melon was really rough and ready, but I liked the concept and took a little bit more time with the man in the hat.

Blind Contour Portraits

I started this portrait series by doing a blind contour sketch in pencil from a source photograph (see if you can spot the Duchess of Cambridge below), then added some details in pen and a watercolour wash (neither of these two stages were blind).

Added pen detail after the pencil blind contour, but forgot to photograph it.

After a week of doing blind contour in pencil I had the confidence to forego the pencil stage and do blind contour in pen

I rushed this one because I wanted it to be fast and loose. He just looks a little scary!

I love this little chap. Especially the shading on his teeth and his odd ears. I also discovered how to successfully draw a nose – simply but effectively.

Overcoming Perfection

This process of creating blind Contour portraits has helped me in numerous ways. Firstly, and most importantly, it has helped get me over the hump of expecting perfection with every painting I create. There’s no way a blind contour sketch can be perfect, so this approach to painting in a valuable tool for letting go of that crippling expectation.

Oddly enough, I’ve also discovered a love of teeth. I’ve avoided drawing them historically, but these mouths have been screaming out for a lovely set of teeth.

I intended these images to be portraits, but I’ve realised they’re more like caricatures, and they look best when there’s one or two key features accentuated.

I’m continuing with the Kick in the Creatives #Kick365 challenge, and will draw at least one portrait or person sketch each day for a year.

Click here to view more Blind Contour sketches.