Contour Drawing and Elizabeth Layton

Today we veered away from our typical group of creating a nice looking project around the topic of a Judaic theme. Instead, we discussed the life of the artist Elizabeth Layton, also known as "Grandma Layton". Our group has evolved into a very regular group of about six individuals, and the trust level has been established, allowing us to dabble with more experimental art exercises.

Elizabeth Layton was a  late blooming artist from Wellsville, Kansas who began drawing at the age of 68. Through contour drawing, she surprisingly cured her 30 year severe depression. Her contour drawings were mostly of herself and her husband  and often focused on political topics she felt strongly about such as AIDS, civil rights, etc. Her prolific portfolio has been shown all over the world including the Smithsonian.

As a warm up exercise each participant chose a black and white image and spent several minutes tracing it. The idea was to loosen up and get a feel for the perimeter of an object. Tracing can be a very soothing activity. Participants were asked to monitor their mood, while they traced. Everyone seemed to enjoy this activity, and were pleased with their results.
The next step of our session was to attempt to draw blind contour drawings. This is a drawing exercise in which the drawing is executed by looking only at the subject and not down at the paper. The result is often a raw image of the subject and a strong mood is  conveyed through the image. The sample image is one drawn of the staff person sitting in our session. She looks contemplative and intrigued. This picture was drawn during her fifth day on the job. Although her face is not drawn clearly, the mood was captured throughh this contour drawing technique. Participants looked at subjects sitting across from them. People were very entertained by the experience and once they got over their initial trepidation, they found the second and third renderings  to be a much more satisfying experience.