I decided to do a blind contour because I only had fifteen minutes to spend on a drawing tonight, and you can spend that little time on a blind contour or you can spend twice that. My son was ribbing me that "it's the 'I only have fifteen minutes and I don't want it to look like I spent a lot of time on it' drawing"... well, yes and no. Yes, you can do something in fifteen minutes, and yes it doesn't look like you spent a lot of time on it! But... it wouldn't be a waste to do several blind contours in a sitting, or to do them more frequently.
I find that when I'm doing standard drawings I sometimes move my hand back and forth without touching the paper to help judge how long a line should be... how large a space is. There is some connection between your visual processing and your kinaesthetic processing so that the hand movement provides feedback concerning translating seen objects into drawn objects, and that is the connection I believe blind contour drawing tends to strengthen. Standard, constantly-checking drawing strengthens it also, but blind contour drawing provides a slightly altered feedback that's useful and interesting.
The same son suggested I might be describing something akin to what is referred to as "muscle memory" - and perhaps so. If you see the distance is this long, you draw it with a hand movement/pencil stroke of this length, and your visual check confirms it looks right, then an association is strengthened. If your visual check finds the results unsatisfactory then the association weakens and is corrected. Your hand starts to become a more active participant in the collaboration.
And a blind contour only takes fifteen minutes to do!
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