I feel like a 50/50 mix of watching what you are doing and watching the object is better then simply just watching the object. If you solely watch the object, your drawing might not resemble the thing at all--as seen here. This is the Sunbird by the way. However, if you just look at your drawing, there's no doubt you would have a similar problem due to lack of input.

I was surprised that the drawings even resembled what i was trying to draw!  This was much quicker than when I drew the warbler in the first exercise.

I found this super challenging! But definitely helped me notice aspects of the shape that I might not have noticed. I think I will do this again as a warm up exercise for a drawing - to really SEE the contour lines. I'm laughing at how abstract my subjects are :)

Contour drawing was challenging for me. I found slowing down definitely helped to improve my images. Contour drawing definitely helped me stay focused on the subject.

Challenging, but I was surprised at how close to the real thing my images were. They look more like shadows than the items, though, with little to no detail separating foreground from background. It allowed me to see how certain things turn and move in the animals body.

A fun and challenging exercise! I really liked it, my first two (newt and sunbird) came out fairly wonky, but there were features I was happy with on both, and on my second two I started to feel an improvement - I was actually very surprised and happy that my Springbok start and finish point matched exactly!

There's an art to this, for sure. Slowing down helped!

My salamander was so sad.  I totally missed matching up the line so that his body was a tiny squiggle.  I improved with the bird, at least matching up beginning and ending and getting basic shape,  The bird of paradise flower was my best attempt, completing some of the points and bumps fairly accurately.  The springbok was a big blob with legs.  I did get the horns close.  Once in an art class we did this with a partner's face.  Turned out pretty quirky but fun.  I'm sure this is a good brain exercise which at my age I can sure use again and again.

My drawing would overlap a lot and the beginning did not meet the end but I had parts of each I could identify with the picture.  The limbs were always larger than they should be even though I imagined them too skinny.

This was a difficult, but interesting exercise.  However, focusing on the positive, I believe I was able to capture the essence of the figure.  This is a very interesting idea to focus only on the object and not on the paper.

The salamander was far easier than the antelope.  I suspect because of the wider variety of shapes and that the antelop was engaged in movement.

I found this exercise somewhat difficult, but valuable. It was hard not to look down at the paper to try to get the subject captured more accurately! But it forces me to look more carefully at the subject and try to notice the nuances of changes in the contour. I used full pages for each drawing - not usual for me. But I liked having the freedom of the whole page to try this exercise, which was interesting. I didn't want to restrict myself. Thanks for the challenge!

A very difficult exercise to practice. Needs a lot of training and focus with eye and hand coordination. In blind contour drawing the sizes are in abnormal scale and the start and end lines are not connecting at all. The contour drawing with imagination or from remembrance is easier to bring in paper than the blind drawing. here the eye focus and hand sketching are not coordinated, though the hand follows the eye movement. A good one for focussing, but needs a lot of patience and skill to connect.

Well this was an interesting exercise!  My first try of the newt was on a full sheet and he looked like Bart Simpson.  Trying a smaller version came out much better.  Fun!

Ok. This was a REALLY disorienting experience! I truly felt like I had an itch in my brain that I couldn't scratch- but at the same time, I certainly was more focused on the subject. After I did the initial drawings, I decided that I wanted to do a "memory coloring," too- so I just watercolored in each drawing however I remembered the colors from the exercise. Last, I went over the initial drawings in black to show the contour drawing better. It actually made a really pretty page in this notebook, even though that was not the goal. It just helps me see that even something as "imperfect" as a blind contour drawing can become a piece of       something I enjoy.

I think it was interesting......BUT wow.....really bad. I was trying to save my expensive water color paper so I didn't give myself enough room.....I will try this exercise again on a piece of computer paper. One picture per page.  Thank you brave people for posting your pictures!

Okay, this is really bad, but I enjoyed the experience! It was difficult to stay focused when all I wanted to do was look down (which, I'll admit, I did once!). The most difficult thing for me is connecting the lines coming up and going down. I laughed a lot during this exercise :D

This was fun and my drawings turned out better than I thought they would.  I did them quite quickly and when I looked down was shocked that they had alot of the features right.  Still pretty wonky but much better than I anticipated.

I've been practicing this exercise for quite a while.  It serves as a nice warm up when I want to focus, but let go at the same time.

I really enjoyed this activity.  Even though the springbok's body didn't join up I feel good about the front legs overlapping and the overall movement.

Hi everyone!  I tried the newt, bird, bird of paradise, and springbok too.  They turned out not so great, but fun to do.  I tried to blind contour a whelk seashell, Christmas tree, and a cardinal.  Thank you!  :-)