Do you long to be the best? I mean seriously better than anybody else? Are you ready to go down in the history books? Are you AMPED UP AND READY TO DOMINATE? Good. Because I’m going to let you in on a secret. What do Donald Trump, Thomas Edison, Helen Keller and Genghis Khan all have in common? They were MASTERS of Blind Contour Drawing. How do you think Napoleon was able to take over most of Europe? Blind contour drawing. BOOM! Did I just BLOW YOUR MIND?

Yes. Yes, I did.

So now that you know what you need to do all you gotta do is get a piece of paper, a pen, and your hand. Both of them. Hold pen in your writing hand. Look at your not writing hand. And then, without picking up your pen or looking at the paper, proceed to draw your hand on the paper. It’s tough, but you want to be the BEST right? You want to ravage Europe and become emperor, don’t you? Well you gotta master this first!

Get to it soldier!

Most of us, since we were little, have been taught how to draw with symbols. Numbers, letters, simple diagrams, cartoons, etc. That’s why when an untrained person sets out to draw a hand, they end up usually with a ball with five sausages glued to it. Because a hand is a blob and fingers are like ovals right? Nope. Those are symbols, real hands don’t be looking like that yo. Get it together! You gotta draw for REAL.

This next technique is all about training your hand and your eyes to see what’s there, and be faithful to it. And what you’re going to be drawing is something you know like the back of your hand. That’s because it is in fact the back of your hand that you’ll be drawing. Like the last technique, this is probably going to come out looking awful. Buck up, this is practice, not art. Stop expecting that everything that comes out of your pen is gonna end up in the Gugenheim. It’ll look like crap, and that’s GOOD.

So here’s the drill: Get your sketchbook ready and put a pen in your hand. Touch the pen to the sketchbook. There are two rules from here on out. Rule 1, don’t pick up your pen. Rule 2, don’t look at what you’re drawing! Seriously.

OK. Now, hold your other (non-drawing) hand up, and pick a spot on it. I usually start from one side of my wrist. What you’re doing, without ever picking up your pen, is drawing the contour of your hand. That’s the line that forms the edge of it. Basically you want to draw every line you see on your hand, including the wrinkles in the knuckles, your fingernails, etc. without ever picking up the pen or looking at what you’re drawing. I mean it. No peeking! I saw that! Don’t! Seriously! Just trace your hand with your eyes, and then let your pen follow those lines on the paper. Once you reach the other side of your wrist, you’re done. Now, take a look.

If you’re like most people (even accomplished artists!) it’ll probably look like a bunch of tangled lines that vaguely resemble fingers (if you’re lucky.) That’s great! Because what it doesn’t look like? A ball with five sausages glued to it. And that’s progress.