Blindfold Drawings

Supplies Required:

• Some sort of blindfold (anything that will completely block your

eyesight while you draw)

• Chalk or Oil pastels (preferably oil pastel – if using oil pastel you

will need something to scrape and scratch the oil pastel away)

• Charcoal

• Rubber Eraser for subtracting chalk pastel, charcoal, chalk line

dust, or graphite powder. As well pencils, markers, and coloured pencils

• Stencils and Templates (as shown in class):

An assortment of organic and geometric stencils and templates at

various scales should be used to maximize the shape variations and

compositions in your drawings. Some stencils/templates should be

considerably larger than your hand while others may be same size and

smaller than your hand.

To make stencils: cut out (or tear) shapes in materials such as paper and or cardboard (the shaped hole in the material is the stencil, the shape removed from the material to create the shaped hole is the template). Geometric shapes may include squares, rectangles, circles and triangles and a combination of those shapes. As well organic shapes may include blob shapes and/or bean shapes and/or asymmetrical clover shapes. Or you may find some ready made stencils or templates that are abstract. The more ambiguous and abstract the stencil is the more successful your drawing will be in reaching the assignment objectives. As you draw blind folded you will feel each cut out stencil and template to trace and layer shapes in your drawing using an additive and subtractive process.

• White or off-white paper, 18 x 24 inches minimum in size, 3-4 sheets

of drawing paper (white cartridge paper is suggested but it is only one

option in terms of white or off-white paper).

• (Optional) Chalk line dust or graphite powder – if you use either of

these mediums bring a dust mask.

Student Examples and Historical Reference:

Further explanations will be given in class that will include some

examples of previous students work (as shown in the class powerpoint presentation) and historical examples by Robert
Morris’s Blind Time Drawings (Began series Circa 1970s).

Purpose of Assignment:

• Increase the awareness of other senses. In particular this assignment

focuses on the sense of; touch, the variety of pressures applied to

drawing tools, and the emphasized awareness of arm, hand and finger

movements while drawing.

• Becoming aware of one’s own body in relation to drawing.

• Becoming sensitized to the physicality of drawing mediums and to the

physical variations of the layers in a drawing.

• Allow chance to take place and letting unexpected accidents to happen

which will give new ways of approaching drawing when considering formal

issues of abstraction. Overall this is opening up the possibility for

intuition and instincts to play a greater role in the drawing process.

• Offer students a variety of options/alternatives to their usual

system of drawing and or to traditional methods of drawing.

Evaluation criteria:

Variation of interesting stencil and template shapes

Variation of drawing materials

Maximized layering process in major parts of drawing

Physical presence of materials on surface

Variation of mark making

Experimentation and innovation

Overall uniqueness