"Why Elmo* can't draw, or "Brain Hemisphericity and Lateral Dominance (I just love that phrase!)

Handout

*Elmo is short for L Mode.

L Mode eliminates details, and we seem to be hard wired to see edges, even where they're aren't any.

Contour drawings mark the edges on the paper as our eyes pass over them in the p.o.d. (point of departure.) They use one contiuous line and are usually done slowly. Try to keep your eye synchronized with your hand. If, as you are drawing, an edge disappears, just draw to the next edge, and continue.

Contour drawings are not supposed to be proportionally perfect. Exaggeration, distortion and omission lend a sense of expression. Details that are not omitted gain in importance.

Contours are excellent for improving eye/hand coordination, observation of details, and are a form of meditation,

blind contour

Blind contours are done while looking at the subject (p.o.d.) only - not at the  paper.
If you lose your place, peek, find a new starting point, look away from your paper, and continue.

Since not everything on the web is true, I suggest these examples of good contour, with continuous line and:

Week 3 :

A. Blind Contour - free subject outside (apologies to those I didn't find out back.)

B. Critique -

1. display work, form partnerships, each present the other's work.
2. vocabulary: curvilinear / rectilinear, expand / contract.

 

Week 4 : Picture-Plane, crop.

The picture-plane is an imaginary, transparent 'frame' between the artist and the subject. It's edges are analogous to the edges of the paper. Durer's device (below), the camera lucida and camera obscura were invented during the Renaissance to help flatten the world.

Although a camera can record contours, colors & values, and can flatten 3-d images,
it can't eliminate unnimportant details, emphasize important ones, or express feelings.

That's why we draw.

Renderings (correctly porportioned 'flattenings') do not express feelings. They document objects in space - but they are not art. You may respond emotionally to a rendering, so renderings can be aesthetic. Not art, though.

When you begin a drawing, you set the picture plane - for beginners, this is usually unconscious. You can change the size and aspect ratio of the picture plane (and the drawing's edges) when the drawing is completed by cropping it. Usually the crop is rectangular, though it can be a trapezoid, an elipse, a circle, or even a 'free form.'

Blind contour drawings eliminate the need to imagine a picture plane while working. Many artists work on a large substrate with the intention to crop later (this can be costly.)

Size and crop greatly affect a work's impact. Below I've cropped the blind in-class contours from week 3. These are just one of many possible solutions:

Therefore: use all your paper! You can always use a mat to add "quiet space" before framing.

Vocabulary: "work from" what you do with a subject when you are drawing. You can't draw it if it's really them in three dimensions. Even the simplest sphere encapsulates different viewpoints from the far-away through the sub-atomic. Drawing from a live model may seem sexist objectification but it's an integral part of artistic objectivity, will will simplify your drawing task.

Warm up: If white areas are defined as positive, do a contour of positive space working from Technicolor Daydream (I'll being a large version.) If you squint hard, you should see the shapes more easily (center.)

Then add black negative space (use hatching or side of peeled graphite stick.) The result is a value study (value refers to lights and darks - right image shows a quick digital solution.)

Week 6

Contour Characteristics:

1. distortion,
2. exaggeration,
3. omission
4. off-center placement
5. lines off paper edge
6. long lines not straight, or with consistent curves
7. no exact alignment (e.g. no en-echelon placement: |||||| )

 

Rendering Characteristics:

1. Description

2. NOT 2-6 (left)

3. Composition secondary to "accuracy."

4. very difficult for beginners.

point of departure and contourish study 09-04-14

Baseline drawings