I drew a burrowing owl from a photo on my camera roll. I'm aware it looks like kind of a blob. I only looked at the notebook twice: at the beginning and at the end. I was happy there was no gap where the line closed.

While these definitely came out wonky, I tried with the newt and the bird of paradise twice. I found that both times, the flower looked more “correct”, maybe because its shape is more geometric?

I don't know if it got any easier, but I felt less uncomfortable with the process as I went along.

I noticed a lot more details being completely focused on the red pine cone. But difficult to draw this way. The results can be entertaining. I tried a pine branch several times. The pine cone was frustrating because I couldn’t add everything I saw.

First time I try this! It was fun but I don't think it helped me much. Maybe because I'm too impatient but I did them as quickly as possible since I knew they were "wrong" already.

 

Very interesting exercise. It's complicated for me to scan and upload the results of my contour attempts at the moment, but they look only abstractly like the photos. The lines were obviously influenced by the photo outlines but my location on the page was out of whack. Only once did I get even close to the starting point. My sense of distance was completely off.

fun, this activitie demands a lot of atenttion

Well I was happy that the shape wasn't too bad but I really had no idea where I was when I ended at the head!  Great exercise.

 

This was challenging to not look down and resulted in some interesting drawings. My newt was recognizable even with an extremely swollen head, the sunbird ended as a humpback with no head (the tail was the best attribute that came out), bird of paradise was acceptable, but oh my... the springbok needs some help :) A very interesting and helpful exercise that I will continue to practice. Thank you Liz!

This was definitely one of the oddest exercises I've done, and it definitely got odder results. My lizard wasn't bad, besides a few limbs cut off from circulation, the bird was fine apart from its fat legs, my flower turned out a lot larger and unproportioned, and lastly, the springbok turned out VERY ABSTRACT and had all its limbs suffocating! Besides all my limbs ending up in the emergency room, there were definitely a few wins, like the lizard looked strangely like the picture, and the flower looked pretty after all. Nonetheless, this exercise helped me hone in on my subject, and I even used it while sketching a puddle with dragonflies. Thanks, Liz!!!

I didn't think that my first attempt was too bad, (newt), but I seemed to get worse with each subject.  Perhaps I lost concentration.  It will be fun practicing this.  Learning that we should just focus on the outer edge of the subject was helpful.

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Greetings, all. First, I want to express my appreciation to everyone who has submitted to the Academy. I've gained insights, ideas, and encouragement from you all for sharing your wonderful work and comments.

I love drawing animals, but haven't drawn birds much. However, on a visit to a monastery in Crete in October, I came across an enclosure filled with small birds (canary-size). How beautiful they were! I observed them for a while. Apparently, they were building nests, and very aggressively fighting over anything they could use. They would continuously try to steal stray feathers, for example, even trying to pull them mid-flight from another bird's beak or nest. I looked around the ground for some feathers, then pushed them one at a time through the fencing. No sooner had one bird seen it, then many of them came in to fight over each one. They were vocalizing very noisily all the time. I guessed that the really colorful ones were male, and the almost white ones female. I knew they were finches from the shape of their beaks. Through later online research I discovered they were zebra finches from Australia. That puzzled me. Then I recalled that during WWII, the monks had hidden Australian troops (and British and New Zealand) from the Germans and had helped them escape. There was a memorial fountain, built in the 1990s, donated by some Australians, in gratitude for the monks' aid. Perhaps the zebra finches were an additional gift. More research needed. Lorraine

• It was really hard to keep my eyes off what I was drawing!  It was Fun too!  Some spots worked, but abstract overall!

This was a fun exercise.  It reminded me of a time when in school we were tasked to use our own hand as the subject of the exercise. My reactions to this exercise's efforts range from a smile to a big belly laugh at my results.  I did notice it was distinctly harder to maintain my focus when I went outside to my patio to try the exercise with a pot of sedum.  The flower border around the edge of the patio was alive with moths, butterflies, and all sorts of other pollinators.  Hence the wandering hand on that particular effort.  The newt and springbok, interestingly enough were my most coherent efforts from the pictures which surprised me due to the complexity of their contours.  I will definitely practice this a few more times.

Whilst my drawing might have been wonky, I noticed lots more by really looking at the subject.

My drawings of the 4 images came out hilarious and malformed, but there were a few details, angles, and negative spaces that were surprisingly accurate. I found that not taking TOO too long to draw the picture and proceeding with a bit of confidence produced better results for me. On my own I drew some young rhubarb leaves and a cucumber leaf. I added a few details for fun and even though they aren't identical to the subjects I think the countour drawings laid down good foundations for capturing the overall impressions of the plants.

Ughhhh, I so need to practice this more! 😳

The sunbird.😅🤪🧐😳

• 

Images attached show my attempt at drawing the newt. I tried twice and both times it looked more like abstract art. Perhaps my drawing arm is resting and it shouldn't be? Any suggestions on how to avoid the crossing over of lines? I'm going to continue to see how I improve. It seems like it should be easier than it was.

Thanks for any and all suggestions.

This exercise was great, and the way it went makes me think I should keep it up on a regular basis because it’s amazing how it keeps your focus glued to your subject. The newt drawing was my worst result of all since it was an open line (I later consciously marked in red the actual contour to highlight the difference). For the next three subjects my hand managed to turn them into closed shapes on paper, and I was pleased with how here and there the outline of the subject turned out to be fairly accurate. Definitely want to keep up the exercise!