Contour Line Drawing

7th and 8th grade artists have been learning about contour lines in the last two weeks. Contour lines are solid outlines of an object. Drawings using contour lines do not include any actual shading, so they generally look unrealistic. Students engaged in a fun activity where they took turns drawing blind contour line drawings of one another, meaning that they looked solely at their subject while drawing and not the paper. The goal is to focus on every outline, every curve in the face to try to include as much detail as possible. The drawings are very goofy, but the artists learned a lot about attention to detail.

 During the next class, students tried contour line drawing of their hands in order to practice for the upcoming project. I gave students permanent markers to draw with so that they were forced to draw without erasing. Drawing hands is a difficult task, but the more attempts that were made, the better the contour drawings were looking. Students had to pay attention to the wrinkles of the hands, the curves of the fingers, and the spaces between each knuckle in order to maintain proper proportion.

Next up: charcoal demo!