Why I love gesture drawing

in #artzone6 years ago

I really feel welcome in the Steem community already! I was surprised by how many people up-voted my first post. Thanks so much!

I teach figure drawing part-time so I'll probably be sharing a lot of figure drawings on here. I wanted to share some insight into one of my favorite ways to improve my figure drawing and that is...... gesture drawing! (I often also call gestures Quickstudies)

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I draw on loose paper but I spiral bind my favorite drawings together when I have enough.

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What I consider gesture drawing to be is any drawing that is 3 minutes or less. Other people have different ideas about the length of a 'quick' drawing but the purpose is to give yourself a severely limited amount of time.

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It's important to study anatomy and the body but I think that gesture drawing is one of the most important things to do if you want to improve your figure drawings quickly.

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One of the most common mistakes that I see beginners make with gesture drawing is to have a completely different way of drawing gestures vs. drawing longer poses. My goal is actually to get as complete of a drawing as possible within the time limit.

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Although it may be impossible to have a super detailed and fully rendered drawing at the end I learn a ton about how to edit drawings effectively when trying to accomplish the goal. By learning to use lines and shapes more economically I can take that knowledge and apply it to longer work as well.

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I have a lot more to say about gestures but I'll save it for a future post. Hope you like the drawings! :)

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These are wonderful. I had to go through them 3 times, I liked them so much. Thanks for sharing. I found you through the #payitforward contest. You were featured by @bengy. Congratulations. Wish you all the best.

I'm really glad you liked them! :) I hope to have many more gesture drawings to show in the future. It's one of my favorite things to draw.

Thanks for sharing these sketches! I am always in awe of people that can draw, I can only do sketches of blocky objects. The curves of a human body completely elude me...

I have featured you and this post in my entry for a curation contest.

https://steemit.com/payitforward/@bengy/pay-it-forward-curation-contest-entry-week-10

wowowowow these are very nice and fluids~ good contours * ___ *

Thanks! I usually focus on the linework first.

Nice post! Yea, you're getting a lot down in a really short amount of time. The bit of halftone to describe the forms is a nice touch too.

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This post was shared in the Curation Collective Discord community for curators, and upvoted and resteemed by the @c-squared community account after manual review.

Very interesting.

I'll follow to see what you have to say in the future about drawing.

I've never really done this type of drawing before, but I have done super quick sketches before and found it interesting, to say the least. I was surprised how well I could do pushing myself to draw quickly, even in only a few seconds.

I have no doubt that such exercises would be deeply beneficial for an artist.

When I first started the only feeling that I had was panic. I was actually drawing way below my ability at the time because I was paying so much attention to the clock! I think that the key with short poses is pacing. Not too fast, not too slow.

I never used an actual clock. I hate literally timing myself. I just tried to be quick as possible.

I imagine if I did use a clock, it would have upped the stress.

It is certainly more stressful at first but I enjoy pushing myself and if it doesn't work out it's fine. It was only a few minutes after all!

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As you know @bengy featured you for this week's Pay It Forward Curation Contest.

These figures are wonderful, such fluidity, and natural motion. You're students have a wonderful teacher. I can't wait to your future postings.

Thanks so much! I always focus on trying to capture a strong line of action. If I can't see a good one I will try to design the shapes to be very interesting instead.