Pure Contour

Giovanni 15 October, 2018

I made this drawing by using a technique called pure contour. Pure contour is when someone looks at an object and studies all of the lines on the object. The person then draws the object, in this case their hand/shoe, and keeps looking at it every couple seconds. This helps maintain a work in progress that looks like the object that is being drawn and is also drawn to scale. After the artwork is complete the artist then traces all of the lines over with darker pencils that will differentiate line weights, light in the back darker in the front. The lines are also pure, as in pure contour, and is not sketchy but solid.

This drawing was made by using graphite pencils and/or charcoal pencils which are darker and can get smudgy. B pencils are darker and softer, which is great for making the final result of a pure contour. H pencils are lighter and harder than their B counterparts. I used a 6B charcoal/graphite pencil for the closest lines to the observer, such as the side or tip of the shoe (drawing #2), and used a 2B charcoal pencil for the lines further away from the observer, such as the inside of the hand and the fingers that were farther away (drawing #1). This way of drawing shows the depth of an object without the need for shading.

This drawing style was fun for me because I love to put lots of detail into my work. I like to work with depth and found out that this was a project that I would love to do again. I thought that it was also I neat idea to use a hand/shoe, which is so different, depending on the person or type of shoe, and has a lot of depth and detail, like the creases/wrinkles and shoelaces/seams . The differing line weights was a new concept for me but found it quite enjoyable. I think I like it even better than shading which can be difficult sometimes, like trying to keep the shading th same in all areas. Overall I love this type of drawing and hope that I will continue to improve and become even better with this new technique.