Contour drawing, as a practice of studying a live model (or object), is described in detail by Kimon Nicolaïdes in “The Natural Way to Draw – A Working Plan for Art Study.” This exercise is an adjustment of this idea to the process of studying a painting. It can be used if the painting depicts one or more “figures” (a person, including portraits, or any kind of object); and it requires having a reasonably large print reproduction (or an original) in front of you. It is unlikely to be possible to do this exercise from a small “screen” reproduction.
For this drawing practice, you can use a soft pencil, a soft charcoal, or a brush and diluted paint. You can do it in your sketchbook, or on a sheet of newsprint paper.
The are two (interrelated) fundamental ideas behind this drawing practice:
- With some exceptions, you don’t take your eyes away from the painting you are studying, so you never draw “from memory”.
- You “enhance” your sense of vision with the sense of touch.
Here is how it works. Focus your eyes on any point on the outside edge (contour) of the figure you are going to draw, and place the tip of your pencil (or charcoal stick, or brush) on the paper. Imagine that your pencil is touching the painting you are studying — or even the figure itself, as the master painter saw it (or them). Before you even begin to move the pencil, convince yourself that the pencil is touching the point where your sight is focused.
Without taking your eyes off the painting, move them slowly along the contour you have chosen, and move your pencil along the paper with the same speed. Keep yourself convinced that you are guided by your sense of touch, rather than by your sense of vision — if you lose this conviction, stop and “re-focus”. The key is to do it very slowly, and coordinate your eye movement with your hand movement as best you can. Your eyes will tend to move faster than your hand — you will probably need several attempts to coordinate their movements.
If the contour you are following leads you inside the figure, continue until it ends. After that, glance at the paper to locate a new starting point — that place where your line left the outside edge of the figure — and continue as before. If you happen to take your eyes off the paper, or to lose the sense of coordinated (eye-hand) movement, do the same: glance at the paper, locate a new starting point. But don’t do this too often, and don’t start to draw while you are still looking at your paper! Every time, wait till you are convinced that your pencil is touching the painting.
Take your time, and by no means expect a “nice” drawing with precise proportions, especially not the first few times. Here is what Nicolaïdes says about this practice:
“This exercise should be done slowly, searchingly, sensitively. Take your time. Do not be too impatient or too quick. There is no point in finishing any one contour study. In fact, a contour study is not a thing that can be ‘finished.’ It is having a particular type of experience, which can continue as long as you have the patience to look.” “A contour drawing is like climbing a mountain as contrasted with flying over it in an airplane. It is not a quick glance at the mountain from far away, but a slow, painstaking climb over it, step by step.”
In the context of a painting study, it is a way to establish a deeper connection both with the motive of the painting and with the master’s way of depicting it. Repeat this exercise as many times as your time schedule allows, but — once again — do each single study slowly, as slowly as you can.
The quality of this experience cannot be measured by how similar to the original your drawings look, but only by your own feeling of getting to know the motive better and more deeply.
This post is a part of online program, “The Making of a Painting Masterpiece”.