The Artist’s/Coder education: Blind Contour

I wanted do a series about the art of design, rather than the more practical humdrum side.

Most people find it very difficult to think creatively this way.  It takes a lot of practice, beyond native intelligence.  It is not a matter of just knowing how the facts work, but also a matter of shutting down those facts slightly in order to shut down parts of the brain that cause self-judgement about actions and perceived design flaws.

In order to exercise oneself out of this habit (and it is very difficult, let me tell you), I am sharing one the most difficult, yet easiest ways of forcing oneself to slowly learn how to shut down the parts of the brain that cause judgment: Blind contour drawing, a technique developed by Kimon Nicolaides.  I’ve taught this technique to Third Graders.  It is not impossible to learn.  Most people just like cutting themselves down as bad at this sort of thinking.  You are not.  Remember that.

Every object has three kinds of contours: The inner contour, the outer contour, and the cross contour.  The outer counter would be the outline, the inner counter would be the outline of the inner shadow, and the cross contour would be the shapes developed through the internal horizon lines.

Now take a piece of paper with no lines on it, and a pencil(if you have charcoal, that will also do, but I recognize most people do not have charcoal hanging around).  Place your hand in front of you.  Look down on the paper and choose a spot to place your pencil.  This is the last time you may look at the paper.  You may only look at your hand from now on, not the paper.

Look at closely- what are its contour lines?  Where are its outer contours? Inner contours? Cross contours?  Slowly with your pencil, without look at the paper, trace those lines onto the page.  Don’t judge yourself. It’s ok to trace with your eyes and your pencil back and forth, until you feel you have the right contour. Don’t lift the pencil, just feel comfortable tracing with your eyes your hand, and mimicking the same movement on paper with your pencil.

One note: You don’t actually have to draw every contour, just the ones you feel are the right contours.  What are the right contours is difficult to describe.  It is a unique experience to everyone, and is something learned over time.  Most people draw on the first shot the full outer contour, parts of the full inner contour, and a few sections of the cross contour, but if that seems wrong, then ignore it.  You will know what seems right based on looking for shapes in your hand.

Once you feel done, usually after about five to ten minutes, put your pencil down and look at the paper.  Usually on the first try it may not look so much like the hand you dreamed of.  It usually takes about ten to twenty if not more, times to practice drawing your own hand, and a lot more to draw other people’s body parts.  However, it will show you abstractions of a hand.  It will show you a lot about how you think of movement, of shape, of space on a page, of where shapes belong on page, of how shapes interrelate to each other, size, and so much more. The hand is often the last thing that comes from this exercise.

Hopefully (if everything went as planned) we have this great psychological and physical expose of the mind.  As odd as this sounds, we are now studying the processes that go into these sorts of drawing, a very natural way to draw, in order to figure out the general processes of the way people visualize the world.

If you take a close look at a contour drawing, (particuarly your contour drawing) you’ll realize, after a while, it tickles the visual senses because it is so basic in its shapes.  There is nothing particularly brilliant about each individual section of a contour drawing.  It is made up of some shapes, that are not usually centered on the page, that vary in size.  The sum total of these shapes, especially the way the shapes interconnect,  cause us to see further patterns.  We then guess at an inter-connected whole.  This, is the brilliance of the contour, which is why even young children like to trace.  We notice the world has these odd shapes in it, and the sum total of these shapes is greater than its parts when we see them together.  If you don’t believe me, flip your  drawing so it is upside down.  You will find it much less intriguing if you can no longer see your hand in it. (though you will also find it easier to copy).

This interconnectedness of how we perceive  shape to shape, their size,place in space, their color (that’s a whole other day), ect, is the start of how we perceive the world.  Although we do rely on our other senses (and make no mistake about it, we do, and those who ignore them also fail), our relationship with sight and shapes, our ability to recognize the patterns in them, is among the most critical abilities we have.  In fact, it is so critical, at two months, babies will stare at two dot above a horizontal line  at their focal distance longer than a horizontal line above two dots.  If you cannot recognize that setup of shapes, it is a very abstracted human face.  We enjoy it to this day as the smiley face.

We are born (or nearly born) with the ability to seek out patterns, especially patterns by sight.

A great web application is much like art in this sense.  Beyond that the code from a pure theoretical point of view is inheritable (reusable,  but yes, people do have individual styles),  there are certain properties to a great application that also remain true no matter what.

The first principle is: No matter what, cause people to see a further pattern, a further hierarchy in you application. They’ll be more intrigued from it, and be able to learn from it, because it is the natural way they are trained to see already.  People want a pattern.  Give it to them.  It is the natural way they see already.

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