It was almost fun! I discovered if I fail at nature drawing I could at least draw some really abstract pictures! Jokes aside, I think its a great exercise to help focus attentively on a subject, since your eyes need to do a serious job of tracing the edges of the subject

Getting proportion right was really difficult. It was hard to keep my eyes and my pencil in the same place and moving at the same speed. I did each of the examples 3 times (well 4 for the bird) and in 3 out of the 4 I liked my 3rd try the best. With the bird of paradise, I am OK with both my first and third tries. With the sunbird I liked my branch on the third and fourth times. The springbok is just hopeless. I'll be trying that a few more times. I'm looking forward to going outside tomorrow (it's dark now). If the weather doesn't cooperate, I have taken some pictures and I have some houseplants inside. It has been a long time since I drew or painted, but I am enjoying this course.

I remember doing blind contour drawing in a class I took many years ago. I agree with others that it’s so challenging NOT to look! Maybe if I gave myself more space on a single page for each, these might not have been so ‘off’! Interesting and fun observation exercise.

It sure was a challenge  with the multiple subjects,  good for going,

This was difficult and my drawings certainly had a modern art component. I was most successful with the bird and least with the salamander.

I think that the most important part is the experience, not the result.  You have to stay focused to move your eyes and hand at the same time, and sometimes its difficult.

Well I tried to focus on the subject so what happened was that my perception of where my hand/pencil was on the paper was so off!! LOL my springbok turned out looking like maybe a buffalo with a trunk!!!  It was also hard not to look at the paper...will do a bit more practice with this one outside.

I'm not sure it helped me stay focused on the subject. I found myself thinking a ton about the lines. I was watching my subjects intently but I could immediately tell that it wasn't really going anywhere. My bird of paradise flower wasn't so bad, but mostly I'm not sure I found this helpful for my journaling in general, but was an interesting exploration of hand-eye coordination without looking down at your hands.

Not my best work! My newts were more like seals. I started drawing from the left top of the picture and found that my lines left to right weren't  quite  so bad but following from right to left along the lower edge were  not good.  Then I tried covering the left eye - result quite bad, but when I covered the right eye the results were surprisingly reasonable. I am right handed. I've learnt something about how my eyesight affects my co-ordination, so will practice taking this into account also.

Whoa! I thought I was doing okay, until I looked down! I noticed that the activity was different when using the photos versus an object right in front of you. The photos already blur the depth and you can focus on the lines. In person I did a snake plant. I had to adjust my eyes to follow just the outline, changing field of depth. At one point I had to keep on eye closed to stay focused on the line. I feel my best test was the newt. I like my feet, the eye spot, the curve of the trail and connecting the back leg.

Picasso! :)

I always feel awkward doing these exercises. But it does make you look closely.

It was really difficult to not look down. For the whole entire time that I was blind contour drawing, I had the urge to look down and see what I was drawing looked like, but I ended up stopping myself from doing so, which I'm really glad about. I really liked this challenge, and like others, the end result was quite... interesting. I was very satisfied with the green-tailed sunbird, because I actually got the lines to meet, but I ended up making the head look like a square, which looked really funny, since the actual bird has more of a rounded and not a rectangular head. Overall, I thought this helped me focus on what I was drawing, but it was pretty difficult, and I hope to improve!

Yes, it helps you focus on the subject but this is a rather difficult exercise for me.  Need lots more practice!

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.