This drawing assignment relates to this one, where I had you draw giraffes “blind,” without looking at your paper. Here’s today’s assignment:

  1. Find references of a chosen subject (in books, internet photos, live models) and do 4-8 blind contour drawings, layered on top of each other. Don’t worry, it will look like a big mess, believe me! (I used an ultra fine point Sharpie and white cover stock paper.)
  2. Now, while looking at your paper make the drawing into “something.” In the example above, I had drawn my cat while she was cleaning herself. Then I “saw” a man’s face in the lines, and so finished that drawing. It’s now a man holding a fox.

Here’s Step 1 from a second piece, using elephants as my original reference:

And here’s the finish (Step 2):

Since I had been drawing elephant trunks, heads and feet, it seemed natural to make an elephant. You can see that I made the start of an elephant face into the ear, and I added to the existing trunk, then towards the end felt I needed to add the shape even again, but bigger (the part I colored yellow).

Even though I was doing this drawing with this assignment in mind, I tried to reserve judgment and just have FUN! You should try to do the same (reserve judgment, have fun).

If you try this, I would love to see them!!

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What are “Assignments”? They are mini tutorials of drawing exercises I do myself. I hope you will try some of them… Drawing is a Blast!!! Here are some past “Assignments”:

Assignment #13: Get a Stack of Books; Draw

Assignment #31: Modified Blind Contours