contour drawing background

Contour is commonly defined as the "outline of a figure or object." There is a definite distinction between "contour and outline." We think of an outline as a diagram or silhouette, flat and two dimensional. It is the sort of drawing you make when you place you hand flat on a piece of paper and trace around the fingers with a pencil...

Contour Drawing...

-- you cannot tell from the drawing whether the palm or the back of the hand is facing downward. Contour has a three-dimensional quality; that is, it indicates the thickness, as well as, the length and width of the form it surrounds.

Sit close to the object or model which you intend to draw. Focus your eyes on some point-- any point will do-- along the contour of the model. Place the point of your pen on the paper. Imagine that your pen point is touching the model instead of the paper. Without taking your eyes off the modl, wait until you are convinced that the pencil is touching that point on the model upon which your eyes are focused.

Then move your eyes slowly along the contour of the model and move the pen slowly along the paper. As you do this, maintain the conviction that the pen point is actually touching the contour. Be guided more by the sense of touch than by sight. This means you must draw without looking at the paper, continuously looking at the model.

Exactly coordinate the pencil with the ey. Your eye may be tempted at first to move faster than your pencil, but do not let it get ahead. Consider only the point that you are working on at the moment with no regard for any other part of the figure.

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