Lesson 1: Blind Contour Drawing

Each tutorial on this page will cover a basic drawing technique. Using and practicing these techniques will help refine your drawing skills. Essentially each of the techniques will train you how to look at your subject matter in different ways and then how to transfer what you see onto the page.

Blind contour drawing is a fun and simple exercise to train you to focus solely on the subject matter. It is important when drawing from life that you are constantly referring to the subject matter in order to apply the truth of what you are drawing to the page. It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of thinking you know what the body looks like and then getting sucked into the sketch, without ever looking back up at your subject matter. Try and treat each new pose or object as though you have no knowledge of it and are looking at it for the first time.

There are 3 simple rules for this exercise:

Don’t look at what you are drawing
Don’t lift your pen
Focus solely on the subject matter (in this case the model)

I find that this technique also helps me to free up my drawing. Remember the human body is an organic form so we don’t require any straight lines when drawing it. It’s also a great way to improve your hand eye co-ordination. Over time you will be able to follow the contours of the body with your eyes and have your hand draw the lines you are seeing.

Try doing this exercise super slow and then fast, play around with layering different coloured pens or thicknesses of pens on the same page.

For more poses go over to our blog page.

Drawing Hands: Lesson 1

This video is the first of two lessons covering the basics on how to draw hands.

Here we are using our own hand as a reference and breaking it down part by part to learn the anatomy of the hand and how to transfer what you see to the page.

Once you have grasped the technique try playing around with your hands in different positions to cement your new visual understanding of the hand and gain confidence in your drawing.