The modified contour drawing of the hand was an extention of a technique we learned previously (last week) called blind contour drawing. This consists of drawing something without looking at the paper. The point is to train your brain to pay more attention to what you are drawing, not your paper. As I always like to say, "You really don't know what something looks like... until you look at it!"
Here is Phil Hanson of Goodbye Art Academy explaining...
Modified contour drawing is...well, modified from blind contour technique. In this case you are able to look at your paper, but not very much. You still have to spend about 95% of your time looking at the thing you are drawing. Why you ask? Because "You really don't know what something looks like until you look at it!"
While you are looking at the thing you are drawing, you should also practice something called "Tracing with your eyes". Imagine your eyes are the tip of your pencil and you are tracing the contour lines of the thing you are looking at- when your eyes move on those lines your pencil should move the same way on your paper.
I added one last component to this lesson, the use of a viewing plane in drawing. This is a clear acrylic pane about 5"x7" with a cross drawn on it with a sharpie. This tool can be used to compose a picture and draw proportions.
To help see their hand two dimensionally, it is recommended that they lay the viewing plane directly on their hand and actually trace it with a marker (as seen in the photo above).
For the portraits, we spent quite a bit of time discussing facial proportions and drawing a large example for practice. Then we dived into drawing our first realistic self portrait using only line (on 12"x18" paper).
The following videos by Phil Hanson of Goodbye Art Academy wonderfully explain the process of drawing a portait.
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