Creative Exercise : Blind contour drawing

The first time I got to know the blind contour drawing method, was during painting class. I had to draw a tree by only looking outside to the tree, while drawing it on paper. The outcome was surprisingly appealing to me. Not focussing on correcting while drawing, but most of all really look at an object was inspiring and fun!

 

“Drawing through observation is a skill that most people are capable of learning,” says Terry O’Day, the chair of the art department at Pacific University, in Forest Grove, Oregon, where the Blind Contour method is taught. “The physical act of drawing consists mostly of developing hand-eye coordination. Anyone who can write legibly has the physical ability to record observations of a subject through drawing.”

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Drawing faces

1-Tracing-people © AMN

Drawing faces and people was always a bit daunting for me. But since I was little I like to draw funny scenes with animal creatures, I love reading comic books and watch animation movies. Capturing an emotion or telling a small story is so rewarding, and so much fun. After sketching along with model drawing videos of Matthew Archambault (Drawing Tutorials Online) I saw Lilla Rogers Drawing Faces self-paced class, and I took my chance to develop my face drawing skills.

Although not everything was new to me, it kept me drawing and playing around with facial features. The class consist of 5 exercises:  tracing faces (see first drawing; a very helpful and easy tool to really look!), style mash up, drawing eyes and expressions, drawing children (my favourite), and a fun face buffet card game. The face buffet game was a good way to put random features and accessories together to create a new character. The class ended with a bonus month of sketching.

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New patterns: Rainbow Party & Jellyfish

Rainbow Party patttern collection

How beautiful and playful are rainbows? That is why I used them to create a surface pattern collection especially for kids. And of course for everyone who feels young at heart. In the last summerschool of the Make It In Design School the brief Expressive Creative Freedom gave me a lot of fun creating watercolour marks in fun colours. Quite an intuitive process. Like any of my designs I did start with a moodboard with inspirational images. This gave me a colour direction and the feel I want to achieve.

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