DR - Contour Line Drawing (Lesson)

In this drawing drill, you will be training your hand to move with your eye as you look at an object and mentally trace around the outside while your hand does the same thing with your pencil on a paper. When you play tennis or baseball you look at the ball coming at you and swing. You don't watch the ball actually make contact with the tennis racquet or the baseball bat because you have trained your mind and arm to work together and sense how close you need to be to hit the ball. Contour line drawings train you to draw in the same way by teaching your hand to draw what you see. The drill will have two different exercises, a contour line drawing that uses contour and cross contour lines and a blind contour line drawing.  Contour lines are lines that surround and define the edges of a subject, giving it shape and volume. Cross contour lines are drawn lines, which travel, as the name suggests, across the form. Cross contours may be horizontal or vertical or even at varying angles to represent volume.

Blind Contour lines are drawn without looking at the paper while only studying the object being drawn.

View this presentation on line contour drawing below.

In the following video, you will see a demonstration of how contour lines are seen by your eye and then interpreted by your hand as you draw.

CONTOUR LINE DRAWING VIDEO IN PUBLIC DOMAIN; BLIND CONTOUR DRAWING TUTORIAL VIDEO FROM ONLINE DRAWING LESSONS, VIA YOUTUBE