Nicolaides—Schedule 1 complete


I've completed—for possibly the SIXTH TIME!—Schedule 1 of Kimon Nicolaides's "The Natural Way to Draw." One of the reasons that I wanted to get through those 15 hours quickly—and the same with the 15 hours of Schedule 2—is that the one hour blind contours are PAINFUL!

Dayum!!

I was happily doing 10 minute blind contours as a daily exercise. But one whole freakin' hour?!?! It's so bloody painful doing them that I found myself becoming loudly exasperated and shouting…in my apartment BY MYSELF! In other words, doing a one hour blind contour drawing will cause INSANITY!!

Luckily, with Schedule 2, there's only one half hour of cross contours (slightly less boring than a standard contour) and one full hour of the standard contour. Then, starting with Schedule 3, there's no more contour drawings. So that's a huge incentive for me complete this entire schedule this holiday weekend. As of this writing, I've done 1 of the 15 hours so I'm on my way.

And it's soooo much fun updating my little progress charts! Woo hoo!

6 comments:

  1. you are right, its painful doing blind contours. I'm getting sleep while following contours. trying hard to concentrate. Thank you for the tip, quite practical one...Now, I ll take more texture objects.

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    1. I'm glad the tip was helpful. I found that it's also good to do that exercise when you're WIDE awake!

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  2. Hi, is it too late to ask if you did the cross contour blind?

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    1. No, not too late at all! Yes, I did the cross contour exercise blind as well. It wasn’t as difficult to concentrate on it like the regular contour exercise because the drawing is perpendicular to what the eye sees. There’s a lot more thinking when doing the cross contour exercise which makes it less painful and less dull than the regular contour exercise. Thanks for the comment!

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  3. Hello, there's another out of date question about cross contour :D. Did you draw outside contour first and then did cross contours within it?

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    1. No problem! Since these are blind contours, it would be extremely difficult to do the outer contours first then find the way back to the correct position for the cross contours. So I drew the cross contours while doing the outer contours. The pencil is not to be lifted during this exercise so doing the outer and cross contours as the eye and hand get to them makes the exercise easier and less frustrating.

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