Creative Lab Exercise 2: Blind Contour Giraffes

The idea here is to draw a giraffe, while looking at a picture of the giraffe and not your paper. It's best to keep your pen on the paper the entire time, but if you have to reposition, you can look while you reposition but as soon as you start drawing again, your eyes should be on the picture of the giraffe. Using old Childcraft books and images of giraffes on the internet, I drew several giraffes in different poses:Then, I decided to try a "taking it further" exercise and draw two giraffes - one on top of the other and add in lines and sparse coloring. Beginning to look abstract:

I really liked the giraffes that I drew above, so this is the basis for my ATC cards. I decided to re-draw what I created above. I just couldn't get the drawing right without it looking too contrived. So, I re-did the blind drawing exercise but on a paper that it ATC sized. I used the recycled/banana fiber paper that I had purchased from Target and I used a black marker to create the giraffes, drawing them "blind." I used my Copic markers to color in the spaces. I will keep this card for a live trade. The card is titled, "Abstract Giraffe."