I will refrain from putting my four images up. Too embarrassing, but I will suggest that it is a very hard activity, especially not peeking at all. I can see the merits of doing it. Perhaps doing it a few times will be beneficial overall.  I will try that.

I circled some of the parts I liked ! Tried a bit more detail in the last one .

This was a funny exercise!  Coming  back to the starting  point was the biggest  challenge. The larger the size of the drawing, the  more difficult it becomes ..  I had also very different results when I made the contour drawing clockwise or counter clockwise..

Total disaster!!!! Hahahaha

Stayed focused YES.....the drawings NOT so good.

Boy, I really stink at this!  Stopped putting the images in my journal as I have done several tries at each.  Got a little better but not much.  But I do agree that this is a fine exercise to establish that eye hand coordination.  Will continue to do this regularly.  Found the plant to be the easiest, all others pretty hopeless.  The first line is OK but coming around the form is not.

My 2nd try on the newt was surprisingly not-too-weird. Not gonna share that springbok, tho.

I expected the sunbird to be the easiest and springbok to be the hardest, but my sunbird came out the worst and springbok the best. Look at that blob bird! I think I did a good job on the springbok's hoofs

I feel that this blind contour made me focus and slow down the drawing speed very much. Blind contour in a single line produced some unrealistic drawings. But without looking at the draw that much, quick glimpses, I think I was able to produce some good images. Even the main darks and lights in the draw was quite easy to do. Starting with contour blind and them make a few corrections to the draw almost without looking creates reasonable drawings. I add a picture I made in blind contour of some animals, that were "cooperative" a caterpillar, a damselfly and a Mallard duck.

I need to slow down; take my time; not rush and keep my eye on the subject.  I will keep practicing this exercise.  It also matters whether I start from the left or from the right.  I am right handed but I do better starting from the left.  I took a botanical art course and I love nature; I am outside in the woods every day; I love to garden so I have lots of subjects to draw and take notes about.  Break up of winter with snow on the ground to April and no snow with the same subject.  Green shoots coming up out of the ground.  Birds at my feeder.  I will never be an artist and the more I draw, the better I will get. I am journaling every day.

I did all four and as a few other people said, I preferred looking at the image.  I could have tried the looking and not picking up my pencil as someone suggested.  They came out so light because in the blind contour I was drawing with a light touch I guess.  I am only uploading two of them although I loved all the images. 

I did the contour drawing not looking at my hand or the paper at all, and predictably, they were pretty far from the real thing.  I think I need to do this every day to get it right.  No fair erasing...

Still unable to upload images. I get a message to check format and size. My images are jpeg and less than 10MB as required. Still not loading.

This was challenging.   I was able to capture a good likeness of the newt but there were major distortions for the other three.  Even as I was defining proportions in my head, I was not making the appropriate decisions.  I think that having the discussions in my head as I devote more time to observing the organism while looking at my drawing will all be essential for success.

Here's the Eastern Red-spotted Newt with contour and glanced at sketches.  I see this species of newt every spring at our camp in Upstate New York.  They are like fairy creatures, so tiny and cute.

I found the contour drawing project fun to do.  Years ago I taught elementary school age children drawing at a friend's art studio and we always started with blind contour sketching.  Another nature journaling artist seen on John Muir Laws art videos on YouTube said she started every drawing session with a blind contour sketch of her hand.  My newt and springbuck blind contour sketches are pretty off but the bird and flower aren't too bad.  I also included a sketch of each photo with glancing at each picture. I really enjoyed this project.

This was a very good exercise to improve hand/eye coordination!  Whew!  I was constantly erasing and adjusting to make the proportions better.

Yeah I think that help to focus

I don't really see the point of blind contour. I think you can just do contour, not raising your pencil, but glancing down at your drawing occasionally to keep yourself centered and still strengthen your eye hand connection. Here is my newt blind and with glances. I like not raising the pencil and even just continuing into the interior of the subject.    

Blind contours of the red newt and green-tailed sunbird.  Still feeling rusty with the contour, but had a great time at the New England Aquarium the other night trying to capture my favorite lobster at an event using microns and watercolor.  I just can't seem to capture the blue one though. :(  

After doing the course photos I decided that plants were easier to capture than animals.That did not prove true when I tried doing the horse and dieffenbachia. Both were difficult to contour draw. I tried using one finger as a guide to where I started but still had a hard time closing the gap. Legs were especially hard as the lines kept crossing over though the shape of them was there. Some of the points and curves of the plant and the mane of the horse captured the feel of what was being drawn. I think this will be an important part of what we are doing when trying to capture motion.