Honest Abstraction & Skill Building For Young Artists
Blind drawing is a simple technique to build eye-hand coordination and is one of the best ways to improve realistic drawing skills. This method, made popular by the book, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain," pulls on methods used by Matisse and Picasso.
I find that using the example of video game playing helps students understand the technique. To not look at your hand while you draw is the same thing gamers do when they play.
When I was in high school, I had a very hard time achieving a likeness without a grid or tracing. My drawings looked human, but not like the person I was trying to draw. When I learned about blind drawing, I immediately saw a "likeness" in the abstracted lines. There's a Zen-like experience as you become "one with the line."
Over time my own work went from vaguely similar to my subject to people mistaking my work for photographs like the portrait below.
I find that using the example of video game playing helps students understand the technique. To not look at your hand while you draw is the same thing gamers do when they play.
When I was in high school, I had a very hard time achieving a likeness without a grid or tracing. My drawings looked human, but not like the person I was trying to draw. When I learned about blind drawing, I immediately saw a "likeness" in the abstracted lines. There's a Zen-like experience as you become "one with the line."
Over time my own work went from vaguely similar to my subject to people mistaking my work for photographs like the portrait below.
The images by Matisse and Picasso above are good examples of blind drawing I share with my students and in the video above. If I was able to run a drawing only course, I would have my students start each day with a 10 minute blind drawing as a warm-up. My experience shows me this is one of the best skill building techniques out there. I like going a bit further sometimes with the drawings and adding crosshatching or color to them. In my early days as an artist, I would transfer my blind drawings to large canvases, like 3 x 5 ft. They were wonderfully pop-art-like. So though this is an exercise, it can become a fully realized work of art depending on where you go with it. (Samples of my work below)
Video Lesson & Introduction
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