This leaf was a challenge to draw. Parts of it were going away from me, parts of it were coming at me, and parts of it were coming at me and then curving away from me! I tried drawing it a few times and it turned out all wobbly looking … and that was frustrating. Finally, I started to make a blind contour drawing of it and that got through to my “Drawing Mind.” As a matter of fact, the left part of this leaf is the blind contour drawing. I peeked … :) … and it was going so well I decided to finish the drawing by looking at the subject from that point on.
Something happens when I do blind contour drawings … something comes loose … something softens … some threshold is crossed and I enter into what I call my Drawing Mind. I can’t explain it in words, but the part of my brain that wants to draw everything with a compass and ruler lets go and a pure sort of hand and eye coordination takes over.
Even after all these years, I still need to warm up with blind contour drawing sometimes. I wrote an article about it a few years ago. You can find it here, if you’re interested.
Happy Drawing!
Carol