Artifacts of Attention exercise from student at Goodall Environmental Studies Center, Wofford College

Short exercise to increase observation skills in the field.

For: Undergraduate EEB & OEB, high school biology, or informal science.

Get ready:

  • Get a pen and a pencil, and a blank book or some sketch paper and a hard surface to draw on.
  • Go outside!
  • Find some organism you want to draw for a few minutes – a seed pod, snail shell, insect wing, tree…

Then draw:

  • Use your pen to do a blind contour drawing…
  • Look only at the subject while you draw, but NOT at the paper.
  • Draw S L O W L Y . . . Allow the eye and hand to creep along slowly, like a tiny ant following the contours, tracing the edges that define areas of light and dark.
    • (S L O W L Y — this is where the “attention” part comes in.)
  • Try to keep the pen on the paper the whole time, but it’s OK if you want to lift it.
An example of a blind contour drawing, made while looking ONLY at the leaves and NOT at the page. The resulting drawings look a bit wonky, but can increase observation skills. It’s always fun to have students share these — good for a few laughs!

Make notes:

  • After you draw, switch to a pencil and list some things you noticed while drawing.
  • You can make your pencil notes right on top of the drawing, or around it.
  • Write the date and location.

Here are a few examples of artifacts of attention shared with me from Wilmington, DE and Glendale, SC:

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