In Summer 2024 I got to hang out with my Mom while my sister was out of town. Between errands, everyday tasks, and extended conversation at the dining room table, we explored doing creative work together.
One afternoon we made unguided contour drawings of each other.
If you know me, you know of my deep love of unguided contour, sometimes called blind contour*. (Betty Edwards calls it pure contour drawing which is much better.)
* Tangent rant: Ahhhhh blind contour. A method introduced by Kimon Nicolaïdes, and a process I adore, but a term I actively reject: blind contour is wildly inaccurate. The etymology of blind (adjective) is “destitute of sight,” and “dark, enveloped in darkness, obscure; unintelligent, lacking mental perception.” Gah. Unguided contour is the absolute OPPOSITE of that. Really, the technique should be called phenomenal contour (phenomenal: “remarkable, exceptional, exciting wonder“) because that fits both the process and the result. Unguided contour is seeing MORE not less. Sigh. Welcome to my hill. Join me and let’s die on this together. Or, no one has to die, just start calling it unguided contour. I rest my case, back to the main story.
Unguided contour is the bestest, deepestest, most revealingest way of seeing and observing. Making a line that is an extension of what you’re noticing, keeping the pen or pencil in contact with the paper at all times in a caress, the result revealing astounding moments of truth…the whole process is damn poetic.
The brilliant Wendy MacNaughton (aka @WendyMac) created an entire initiative centered on unguided contour. Her DrawTogetherStrangers project is so gorgeous, attentive, compassionate, loving, hilarious. And all those words remind me of my Mom.
My Mom’s face was one of the first things I saw as a human. I’ve seen my mom’s face thousands of times, over 50+ years. And she’s seen me at every single stage of life. But in all those years, we had never made the time to gaze with attention and love and focus, and to memorialize that experience in line on paper. To, as WendyMac says, “slow down down and pay close, unbroken attention to each other for 60 seconds.”
So instead of DrawTogetherStrangers, we did DrawTogetherLovedOnes.
And it was beautiful.
Per Wendy’s DrawTogetherStrangers guidelines (and unguided contour basics) there are only two rules:
1) Use one continuous line. Do not lift your pen up off the paper. Not once.
2) Never look down at the paper you are drawing on, only look at your partner.
(Link to full DrawTogetherStrangers info @ end of post.)
We did three rounds: two unguided contour (no looking!) and one guided contour (a little looking.) Mom is the top set (unguided on left and guided on right;) I’m the bottom set.
I love these portraits so much. Weird and insightful and fun and bizarre. They are the documented experience of loving and looking and I would not trade the experience for the world.
Give it a try. Do it with a stranger (Wendy has a whole blueprint to follow) or sit down with a loved one, a family member, a friend, and do it. It only takes a pen or pencil and paper, and only 1 minute. You’ll have a portrait you’ll remember and treasure for a long time.
Links:
Wendy MacNaughton and DrawTogetherStrangers and DrawTogetherStudio
Blind Contour via Kimon Nicolaïdes
