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.

I did all the contours on top of each other in different colors, so it makes a very strange picture.

I felt that each animal was decapitated when I tried blind contour drawing, I can't get one end of the drawing near where I started.  Means I should perhaps focus on proportions better.  After i tried some trees outside and this was more successful.  They still look like abstract, but the essence of the tree is there.

Ha! This assignment made me laugh. You have to have a sense of humor about your work and this assignment definitely helped loosen up. Besides the humor, it definitely helped me stay focused on my subject. It was hard to resist the temptation to peek at the page, though.

It was a fun exercise.  I am experience at drawing, but have never really tried blind contour drawing.  I think I’m going to take my grandchildren out this week and teach them blind contour drawing.  We should get some good laughs.

I did not find this technique helpful.  I do not think it enhanced my observation skills .  I was more concerned about getting the shapes right instead of focusing on the subject.  I also felt very disconnected with where I was on the page and how to connect the lines so the body or plant shape would be whole instead of in separate pieces. I feel that I am able to concentrate on what I am observing in the natural world so did not find this enhanced my connection.  

I have a hard time drawing period, this exercise was hard because I was all over the place when I didn't look at the page at all.

The springbok was my favorite.

This was hard. It seemed to be a matter of trying to match my mind with what I was seeing & it sometimes felt that timing was out of whack between the two. Will add the Springbok with next reply.  Felt the Springbok was better & that the bird of paradise flower was the worst - which is frustrating because one of my best large paintings was a bird of paradise flower. Good thing I didn't have to not look at the canvas LoL!

Yes it is an interesting exercise. I have not gone outside yet to try it.  But I did sense that I was spending more time looking at details on the subject rather than just trying to get the general impression on paper. It will also be interesting to see how this ties in to "sketching" which seems to lend itself to capturing general impressions rather than structural details.