A contour line leads to Illinois

A contour drawing (c) Philip Hartigan, posted with permission of the artist

Last week I was searching the internet for contour drawings and came on this one by Philip Hartigan, an English artist living and working in Illinois. It's a "blind" contour drawing, a slow and sensitive method in which the artist draws while not looking at the paper, instead concentrating totally on the subject and following with the pencil or pen every little bump and hollow as if touching the edge of the form with a fingertip. Contour drawing was one of the elements of the teaching of Kimon Nicolaïdes in the first half of the 20th century. Later, Betty Edwards popularised it in her best-selling book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

As so often happens, this one link led to a whole lot more. Philip Hartigan is a painter, printmaker and sculptor and he writes for Hyperallergic. His stop-motion animations are a delight to watch. He also does some university teaching.

Some more videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyWVAUAmNnU
Hartigan briefly describes an installation of toy soldiers, 1 min 12 secs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-CwQqXWDyU&feature=player_detailpage
A Google Hangout conversation with P.E. Sharpe, Philip Hartigan, Hrag Vartanian and Jillian Steinhauer of Hyperallergic. -- 35 mins.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XXCOxlCMgc&feature=player_detailpage
A Google Hangout interview, 1 hr