How To Use Pure Contour Drwing

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2 l)rwing on the Right Side o the Brin Whve reviecd your childhood rt nd the develop ment of the set of symbols tht formed your childhood lnguge of drwing. 1 his process prlleled the development of other symbol systems: speech, reding, writing, nd rithmetic. Wheres these other symbol systems formed useful foundtions for lter development of verbl nd computtionl skills, child hood drwing symbols seem to inteifere with lter stges of rt. Thus, the centrl problem of teching relistic drwing to individuls from ge ten or SO onwrd is tht the left brin seems to insist on using its memorized, stored drwing symbols when they re no longer pproprite to the tsk. In sense, the left brin unfortuntely continues to think it cn drw long fter the bility to process sptil, reltionl informtion hs been lterlized, or shifted, to the right brin. When confronted with drwing tsk, the left hemisphere comes rushing in with its verblly linked symbols; fterwrd, ironiclly, the left brin is ll too redy to supply derogtory words of judgment if the drwing looks childlike or nive. In the lst chpter 1 sid tht n effective wy to turn off your dominnt left hemisphere, with its verbl, symbolic style of workii,. to turn on your nondominnt right brin, with its sptil reltionl style, is to present your brin with tsk tht the left brin either cn t or wont work t. We hve used the Vse-Fces drwings nd upside-down drwings to gin ccess to your R-mode. Now we ll try nother, more drstic strtegy tht will force L-mode more completely. stronger cognitive shift nd suppress your The technique is clled pure contour drwing, nd your left hemisphere is probbly not going to like it. Introduced by respected rt techer, Kimon Nicolides, in his 1941 book, The Nturl Wy to Drw, the method hs been widely used by rt techers. I believe tht our new knowledge bout how the brin divides its work lod provides ing why pure contour drwing is effective s conceptul bsis for understnd teching method. At the time of writing his book, Nicolides pprently felt tht the reson the pure contour method improved students drwing ws tht it cused students to use both senses of sight nd touch: Nicolides recommended tht students imgine tht they were touching the form s they drew. It seems more likely now tht the method works becuse the left brin rejects the slow, meticulous,

3 Kimon Meeting Edges nd Contours complex perceptions of sptil, reltionl informtion, thus l lowing ccess to R mode processing. In short, pure contour drwing doesn t suit the left brin s style; it suits the style of the right brin gin, just wht we wnt. Before describing the method, I ll define some terms. In drwing, contour is defined s nfde s you perceive it. As method, pure contour drwing (which is sometimes termed blind contour drwing ) entils close, intense observtion s you drw the edges of form without looking t the drwing while it is in progress. An edge, s the term is used in drwing, is the plce where two thinç. c meet. In drwing your hnd, for exmple, the plces where the ir (which in drwing is thought of s bckground or negtive spce) meets the surfce of your hnd, the plce where fingernil meets the surrounding skin, the plce where two folds of skin meet to form wrinkle, nd so on, re shred edges. The shred edge (clled contour) cn be described single line, which is clled contour line. (We ll he working with tht is, drwn edges gin in the next chpter on negtive spce.) This concept of edges is fundmentl concept in rt, hving to do with unity, perhps the most importnt principle in rt. Unity is chieved when everything in composition fits together s coherent whole, ech prt contributing to the wholeness of the totl imge. s Merely to see, therefore, is not enough. It is necessry to hve fresh, vivid, physicl contct with the object you drw through s mny espe (II the senses s possible nd cilly through the sense of touch. Nicolides The Nturl 1 y to Drw AN EXERCISE IN EDGES To firmly set in your mind the concept of unified shpes nd spces tht shre edges, do the following exercise in imging nd seeing edges: I. See in your mind s eye disssembled child s jigsw puzzle of six or eight pinted pieces. The pieces will go together to form picture of silbot on lke. Imgine tht the jigsw pieces re shped like the forms: single white piece is the sil; red piece, the bot, etc. Imgine the rest of the pieces in your own wy lnd, dock, clouds, whtever. 2. Now ssemble the pieces in your imgintion. See tht the two edges come together to form single line (imgine this s precision-cut puzzle). These shred edges form contour lines. All of the pieces lnd, etc.) fit spces (sky nd wter) nd shpes (bot, sil, together to form the whqle puzzle. 3. Next regrd your own hnd, one eye closed t fltten the imge (closing one eye removes binoculr depth perception). 83

4 l)rwing on the Right Side of the Brin Think of your hnd nd the ir round it s jigsw puzzle, the spces (negtive spces) between the fingers shring edges with the fingers; the shpe of the flesh round ech fingernil shring n edge with the fingernil; two res of skin shring n edge to form wrinkle. The whole imge, mde up of shpes nd spces, fits together like jigsw puzzle. 4 Now direct your eyes t one specific edge nywhere on your hnd. Imgine in your mind s eye tht you re drwing tht edge s single, slow, exct line on piece of pper. \s your eyes move slowly long the edge, imgine tht you cn simult neously see the line being drwn, s though by some mgicl recording device. USING PURE CONTOUR DRAWING TO BYPASS YOUR SYMBOL SYSTEM In my clsses, I demonstrte pure contour drwing, describing how to use the method s I drw f I cn mnge to keep tlking (n L-mode function) while I m trying to use my right brin for drwing. Usully, I strt out ll right but begin triling off in mid-sentence fter five minutes or so. By tht time, how students will hve the ide. hiio4nig the demonstrtion, I show exmples of previous students pure contour drwings. Before you begin: To best chieve n pproximtion of the clss room procedure, be sure to red ll of the instructions nd exmine ll of the student drwings in the Student Showing before beginning your drwing. t I. Find plce where you cn be lone nd uninterrupted for lest twenty minutes. 2. Set n lrm clock or timer, if you wish, for tenty min utes just before you strt your drwing. (This is to remove the necessity of keeping trck of time n L-mode function.) Or, if you hve plenty of time nd don t cre bout how long you might be drwing, omit the timer. 3. Plce piece of pper on tble nd tpe it down in ny position tht seems comfortble. Tping is necessry so tht the pper wont shift bout while you re drwing. 4. You re going to drw picture of your own hnd left hnd if you re right-hnded, your right hnd if you re your left-hnded. Arrnge yourself so tht your drwing hnd, hold 84

5 Meeting Edges nd Contours ing the pencil, is redy to drw on the tped-down pper. 5. Fce ll the wy round to the opposite direction, gzing t the hnd you will drw. Be sure to rest the hnd on some sup port, becuse you will be holding the sme position for quite long time. You re going to drw your hnd without being ble to see wht you re drwing (see the position in Figure 6-1). Fcing wy from your drwing is necessry to chieve the purpose of the method: first, to focus your entire ttention on the visul infor intion out there in front; nd second, to remove ll ttention from the drwing, which might trigger off your old symbolic ptterns memorized from childhood s the wy to drw hnds. You wnt to drw only wht you see (in sptil R-mode) nd not wht you know (in symbolic L-mode). Turning ll the wy round is necessry lso becuse the impulse to look t the drwing is lmost overwhelming t first. If you drw in the norml position / I - Fig The turned-round drwing position for pure contour drwing.

6 I)rwing on the Right Side of the Brin In oneself yoo know how to look nd lern, it lies then the door in is the whole world nd there nd the key your hnd. \ohody on erth cn give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself. is j. Krishnmurti ;Ire You the World nd sy to yourself, I just wont look, you will very likely find yourself steling peeks out of the corner of your eye. This will rectivte the L-mode nd defet the purpose of the exercise. 6. In the turned-round position, focus your eyes on some prt of your hnd nd perceive n t re. At the sme time, plce the point of your pencil on the pper (t ny plce well within the outside borders of the pper). 7. Very slowly, creeping millimeter t time, move your eyes long-the edge of your hnd, observing every minute vrition nd undultion f the edge. As your eyes move, lso move your pencil point t the sme slow pce on the pper, recording ech slight chnge or vrition in the edge tht you observe with your eyes. Become convir -ed in your mind tht the informtion ori ginting in the observ.,. ibject (your hnd) is minutely nd pre cisely perceived by your s nd is simultneously recorded by the pencil, which registers evervthing you re seeing t the moment of seeing. S. Do not turn round to look t the pper. Observing your hnd, drw the edges you see one bit t time. Your eyes will see nd your pencil will record bit by bit the chnging configurtion of the contour. At the sme time you will be wre of the rel tionship of tht contour to the whole configurtion of complex contours tht is the whole hnd. You my drw outside or inside contours or move from one to the other nd bck gin. Don t be concerned bout whether the drwing will look like your hn1. It probbly won t, since you cn t monitor proportions, etc. By confining your perceptions to smll bits t time, you cn lern to see things exctly s they re, in the rtist s mode of seeing. 9. Mtch the movement of the pencil exctly with your eye movement. One or the other my ttempt to speed up, but don t let tht hppen. You must record everything t the very instnt tht you see ech point on the contour. Do not puse in the drwing, but continue t slow, even pce. At first you my feel unesy or uncomfortble: some students report sudden hed ches or sense of pnic. I believe this hppens when the left brin senses tht pure contour drwing is presenting chllenge to its dominnce. It relizes, the intricte, complex tngle of edges in your hnd t the slow I serious think, tht if you record pce you re drwing, the right brin will hve control for long, long time. Therefore, the left brin sys, in effect, Stop this stupid stuff right now! We don t need to look t things tht closely. I ve lredy nmed everything for you, even some smll 86

7 from Mx Meeting Edges nd Contours things like wrinkles. \ow be resonble nd let s get on with something tht s not So boring if you don t, I ll give von hedche. Ignore this complining. Simply persist. As you continue to drw, the protests from the left will fde out nd your mind vill become quiet. You will find yourself becoming fscinted with the ondrous complexity of the thing you re seeing, nd von will feel tht you could go deeper nd deeper into the complex ity. Allow this to hppen. You hve nothing to fer or be unesy bout. Your drwing will be beutiful record of your deep perception. We re not concerned bout whether the drwing looks like hnd. We wnt the record of your perceptions. fteryoujinish: Think bck now on how you felt t the beginning of the pure contour drwing compred to how you felt lter, when you were deeply into the drwing. Wht did tht lter stte feel like? Did you lose wreness of time pssing? Like Mx Ernst, did you become enmored of wht you sw? When you return to the lterntive stte, will you recognize it? For most students, pure contour drwing produces the deepest hift, the frthest journey into the R-mode subjective stte, of ny of the exercises. Cut off from the drwing visul input tht would llow nming, symbolizing, ctegorizing nd Forced to focus on wht it considers too much informtion, the left mode is turned down nd the right mode tkes over the job. The slowness of the drwing seems to push the left mode deeper nd deeper into neutrl, or off. Pure contour drwing is so effective t producing this strong shift tht mny rtists routinely begin drwing with t lest short session of the method, ir order to strt the process of turning off the L-mode. If perhps you did not chieve strong shift to R-mode in this first drwing, be ptient with yourself. Some individuls left hemispheres re very determined, or perhps very ferful, o>f giving up control to the right. You must ressure the left. Tlk to it. Tell it tht you re not going to bndon it, tht you just wnt to try something out. Grdully, you ll find tht the left will llow the shift. Mke sure, however, tht you don t permit your verbl left brin to ridicule your pure contour drwing, sying criticl things nd spoiling the gin you hve mde. Tht s not wht we were fter t this point. Soon, however, we ll he putting everything to gether, nd your drwing will he better thn ever before. Knshnmurt,: So where does silence l)egin Does It begin when thought ends? I Live you ever tried to end thought? Questioner: Flow do you do it? Krishn,nurti: I don t know, but hve you ever tried it? First of ll, who is the entity who is trying to stop thought? Questioner: The thinker. Krishnmurtz: It s nother thought, Isn t it? Thought is trying to stop it self, so there is bttle between the thinker nd the thought...thought sys, 1 must stop thinking becuse then I shll experience mrvelous stte,.. One thought is trying to suppress nother thought, so there is conflict. When I see this s fct, see it totlly, understnd it completely, hve n insight into it... then the mind is quiet. This comes bout nturlly nd esily when the mind is quiet to wtch, to look, to see....j Krishnmurti You ire the World Blind swimmer, I hve mde myself see. I hve seen.. \nd I ws surprised md enmored ut wht Isw, wishing to identify myself with it Ernst 87

8 I)rwing on the Right Side of the Brin I he Doors I clm on his in In f Percttmn, A Idous lu dcy described the effects of mes things perception ot ordinry his gry flnnel trousers. folds fl s this instnce, the folds of I Ic sw the living hieroglyphs tht stnd some peculirly expressive wy tor the unfthomble mystery of pure being...the folds of my gry fln nel trousers were chrged with is less. Iuxley continued: Wht the rest only under the influence of of mesclin, the rtist the time. us see equipped to see ll is congenitlly S I UDENT SHOWING: A Record of n Alterntive Stte h)llowing is Student Showing of some pure contour drwings. Wht strnge nd mrvelous mrkings re these! \ever mind tht some of the drwings don t resemble gretly the overll configurtion of hnd tht s to be expected. We will ttend to the overll conhgurtion in the next exercise, modified con tour drwing. In pure contour drwing, it is the qulity of the mrks nd their chrcter tht we cre bout. The mrks, these living hieroglyphs, re records fperceptions. It) be found nowhere in the drwings re the thin, glib, stereotypic mrks of csul, rpid L-mode symbolic ocessing. Insted, we see rich, deep, intui tive mrks mde in resk -se to the thing-s-it-is, the thing s it exists out there, mrks tnt delinete the is-ness of the object. i ;: r - 7 j I,.. ) K Georgette Zuleski Cmi Berg Student Showing: Pure Contour Drwing

9 - - \Ieeting Edges nd Contours Blind swimmers hve seen! And seeing, they hve drwn. I believe tht these drwings re visul records of the R-mode stte of consciousness. As friend of mine, writer Judi Mrks, remrked on viewing pure contour drwing for the first time, No one in their left mind would do drwing like tht! Begin now to drw, using the Pure Contour Drwing method. Continue to drw until the timer goes off. While OU my of course stop whenever you feel like it, try to drw for bout 30 minutes without stopping nd without looking t your drwing. If you mke significnt shift to R-mode, you my drw on nd Ofl for even n hour or so. MODIFIED CONTOUR DRAWING Now tht you hve lerned how to gin ccess to the right hlf of your brin how to open doors of perception nd to enter the slightly ltered subjective stte of right-hemisphere processing s - ç j 4 J. - Beth (hck Judy Leventhl Student Showing: Pure Contour I )r;i mg

10 l)rw ing on the Right Side of the Brin Supplementry Exercises 6. Following precisely the tions for pure contour drwing, observe nd drw complex flower such s n iris, chrysnthemum, rose, gernium. for thirty minutes. 6b. \gin following the directions for pure contour drwing, drw nturl innimte ob)ecr such s shell, rock, or piece of driftwmxi. Agin, choose complex object. 1)rw for thirty minutes. 6c. Crumple piece of pper nd drw it, using pure contour drwing. If possible, tke full hour to do this drwing. [)r direc you re beginning to see in lmost redy to drw modified contour drwing. the wy rtists see, nd you re relistic imge using the next method, But before we skip these drwings. They re necessry for you to fully expe go into tht, do exercises 6, b, nd rience the cognitive shift After tht, the trnsition to modified ir nd plesurble. so tour drwing will be esier to mke. ing, Modified contour drwing except c. Do not tht the R-mode stte becomes fmil is exctly like con pure contour drw tht you llow yourself to glnce t the drwing t intervls for the sole purpose of noting reltionships of sizes, lengths, nd ngles. You will be ble to glnce briefly drwing to monitor line direction, proportion, etc., nd t t your sme time to use the slow, intense observtion tht cuses the cognitive shift to R mode. the Befrjre you begin: in Red ll t Arrnge for t lest Sit comfortbly shown it of the directions. hlf-hour of uninterrupted time. tble, this time in the usul position, Figure 6-2. Agin, tpe your pper to the tble wont slip round. gin. Arrnge your hnd You in twined, clenched, crossed, whtever. better for our purposes thn so tht re going to drw your own hnd complex position A fingers en complicted position flt, open, simple position becuse the right hemisphere seems to prefer complexity. 3. Be sure not to move either the position of your hnd, once you ve strted the drwing, or your hed your hed to view. Tke only, not 4. see is tht is, don t tilt prt of your hnd tht my be hidden from single position nd sty there. We wnt one view multiple view tht would distort your drwing. Gze t your hnd the cognitive shift to R-mode processing. in preprtion to drw. This Imge will strt verticl line nd horizontl line next to your hnd. Observe the reltionship of single ngle to either verticl or horizontl. Now look t your were drwn on the pper. spce, perhps between the fingers. Gze t tht spce until you pper nd Find imge see finger. Try to R-mode. 5. in the contour, 90 the ngle s though the edge of the spce where feel Fsten your eyes it it meets the edge of the your mind mking the cognitive shift to t ny point on reltion to verticl or horizontl. your pencil drws contour. Check the ngle As your eyes move slowly long the contour on the pper t the sme slow

11 Meeting Edges nd Contours 27 - Fig. 6-2 The position for modified contour drwing is the usul drwing position. speed. Move from contour to djcent contour. Do not drw complete outline nd then try to drw the interior forms. It s much esier to move from form to djcent form. As in pure contour drwing, your pencil will record ll of the edges, noting every slight chnge of direction nd undultion of ech contour. This is wordless process. Do not tlk to yourself Do not nme the prts s you drw. You re working with visul informtion only; words do not help. It s not necessry to try to figure nything out logiclly, becuse ll of the visul informtion is right there in front of your eyes. Concentrte on wht you see, wordlessly sensing to yourself how long one prt is in reltion to nother; how wide one prt is in reltion to the one you hve just drwn; how steep one ngle is compred.to nother; nd where one contour ppers to emerge from one you hve just drwn. 6. Glnce t your pper only to locte point or to check Ofl reltionship. About ninety percent of your drwing time should be spent with your eyes focued on the hnd you re drwing, just s in the pure contour method. 91

12 l)rwing on the Right Side of the Brin Professor Elliot Elgrt of the Univer sity of Cliforni t Los ngeles rt I)eprtment told mc in converstion tht he hs often observed beginfling drwing students, presented for reclining model, tilt their heds fr to one side while the first time with drsing the model. Why? To see the model in the position they re used to, which i stnding up 7. When you come to the f-i-n-g-e-r-n i-l-s (we re not nm ing things, remember), drw the shpes round the nils, not the nils themselves. This wy you will void ny dredged-up sym bols froth childhood. The left brin hs no nmes for the shpes round fingernils. In fct, if you hve trouble with ny prt, shift to the next djcent shpe or to the spce tht shres the contour you need. 8. Finlly, remember tht everything you need to know bout of the required your hnd in order to do your drwing perceptul informtion you need is ll right there in front of your eyes. \our job is simply to set down the perceptions just s you see them in mrks tht re records ofperceptions. You don t need to think in order to do this. Since you need only sense nd observe nd record wht you see, the drwing will seem esy nd you will feel confident nd relxed nd engged, fscinted with how the prts ll fit together like perfectly fitted jigsw puzzle. Begin now to drw. Within few minutes you will hve shifted to the lterntive stte of R-mode, but you needn t think bout tht. You hve consciously set the conditions for the shift to xxur, nd it will soon occur without ny effort on your prt. Modified contour drwing, like the other exercises, is tsk tht the left brin will turn down, opening ccess to th righthemisphere mode. ifter you finish: Review in your mind the drwing strtegies you used, wht the R-mode stte of consciousness felt like, how you slipped into tht stte by consciously setting up conditions to fcilitte the shift. This first drwing my revel some misperceptions of propor tion or of reltive ngles. Exercises in the next chpters will help correct problems with proportions. Drwing t this stge is rther like lerning to drive cr. You first lerned the seprte opertions ccelertion, brking, signling; wtching crs hed, behind, t the sides. In driving tht first time, you hd to put evtrything together, coordinting seprte skills into n integrted whole. The first time ws hrder thn the second, the second hrder thn the third. the skills nd strtegies were inttgrted. 1Soon And the coordintion of number of strtegies. In short time, these SO it is with drwing. Drwing is holistic skill, requiring strtegies will become s utomtic s brking, ccelerting, nd signling hve become for you when driving. 92

13 \leeting Idges nd Contours i o give yourself more prctice nd to build conhdence, cre fully do exercises 6d to 6g on pge 95. Before you strt ech drwing, set up the conditions tht will fcilitte the cognitive shift to the R-rnode stte of consciousness. Especilly importnt: mke sure you hve block of uninterrupted time. Lter, you my he ble to ccomplish the shift in spite of interruptions, but most rtists seek solitude for drwing. STUI)ENT SHOWING: Modihed Contour Drwing In the following student drwings, the hnds seem to hve been drwn by individuls who were experienced t drwing. The hnds re three-dimensionl, believble, uthentic. They seem to l)e mde of flesh, muscles, skin, nd bones. Even very subtle qulities re described, such s the pressure of one finger on nother, the tensiofl of certin muscles, or the precise texture of the skin. TIlE NEXT STEP: THE L-W)DE WITH TRICKING EMPTY SPACE So fr, we hve locted some gps in the bilities of the left hemisphere: it hs problems with mirror imges (s in the Vse Lces drwing); it cn t del with upside-down perceptul intion (s in the upside-down Strvinsky drwing); it refuses to process slow, complex perceptions (s in the pure nd modified contour drwings). We used those disbilities to give your right hemisphere chnce to process visul informtion without ference from the domineering left brin. The next chpter is designed to reestblish your grsp of the uflit (Jspces ndjrins in composition, which you hd s child. The emphsis of tht chpter is on negtive spce. intor inter 93

14 - Drwing on the Right Side of the Brin A If r \, 7 _c 47 7 / I / j Annette Rmirez / [Ari Stoize Pt Mrovich Student Showing: Modified Contour Drwing

15 Meeting Edges nd Contours f / Fig Fig Mrth Klivs K N Fig I 1 4 \or Thoms 4 A Supplementry Exercises Before you hegin: Spend five or ten minutes doing pure contour drw ing of ny complex object to prepre for the cognitive shift to R-mode. 6d. Do second modified contour drwing of pinecone. See Figure 6-3 for n exmple of student s drwing. 6e. Do modified contour drwing of n ordinry brown pper bg, in ny condition or position you wish. See Figure f. Do modified contour drwing of n ordinry household object n eggbeter, corkscrew, n iron, cn opener. Remember tht the right hemisphere seems to prefer complex ity. See Figure g. Do modified contour drwing of your own foot, with or without shoe. (If you include your knee s you look down t your f(xt, note how wide it is reltive to the width of your foot.) See Figure 6-6. After you finish: Regrd your drw ings done in L-mode. Tke note of the res where the drwing indictes tht you were most locked on to the imge before your eyes. This will be reflected in the exctness of your perceptions. Try to recll your brin stte t tht point in your drwing. Fig Georgette Zuleski Chrlotte Doctor

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