Write a paragraph explaining what artists have to think about when creating a contour drawing from observation.

Blind contour drawing is a drawing exercise, where an artist draws the contour of a subject without looking at the paper. The artistic technique was introduced by Kimon Nicolaïdes in The Natural Way to Draw, and it is further popularized by Betty Edwards as "pure contour drawing" in The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Nicolaïdes and Edwards propose different ideas of why blind contour drawing is an important method of drawing for art students. Nicolaïdes instructs students to keep the belief that the pencil point is actually touching the contour. He suggested that the technique improves students' drawings because it causes students to use both senses of sight and touch. Edwards suggests that pure contour drawing creates a shift from left mode to right mode thinking. The left mode of the brain rejects meticulous, complex perception of spatial and relational information, consequently permitting the right brain to take over. Blind contour drawing may not produce a lifelike drawing; however, it helps students to draw more realistically, rather than relying on their memorized drawing symbols. Blind contour drawing trains the eye and hand to work as a team, and it helps students to see all of the details of the object.

Some artists use contour drawing to warm up for a drawing session.

Observational drawing is an integral component of many high school Art courses, including GCSE/IGCSE and A Level Art. Often, drawing is the core method of researching, investigating, developing and communicating ideas. While it is accepted that there are many wondrous types of drawings – and that non-representational drawing methods have an important role in student Art projects – it is usually advantageous to demonstrate competent, realistic observational drawing skills to the examiner (particularly in the early stage of a project).

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