Gesture Assistance
4d
Tim Norris
Sooo... I really want to master gesture. It's really beautiful to me. I didn't think I was getting quite enough from the section on gesture in the Drawing Basics course. I decided to pull the trigger on Figure Drawing Fundamentals. I see the movement and can see useful rhythms. Example: a figure is leaning back slightly with hips hinged and the left lat flows into the right quad. I'm even rather familiar with anatomy already.
Yet, my sketches are now absolutely wretched compared with when my focus is more on contour. When I try to simplify the form, it feels like I'm almost taking it too far. Like there's no structure holding it together. So then I try to aim for structure again and I find myself adding unnecessary details to a poorly constructed whole. And getting worse by the day it seems. I know this is a long game, but I'm not sure how to improve in the short term. Is it just a matter of accumulating enough failures to find a breakthrough or is there a metaphorical posture and locus of attention that I'm failing to channel? Assistance please.
[Attached are the last few of today's session and an example of my contour based work prior to embarking upon the gesture hunt.]
Tim! Bro, your gestures are good! You also have a great eye, and it'll keep getting better, trust me. Once you get the proportions right (which I think is what's bothering you, no?) it'll click, then bang! Everything Melanie said. Listen to her, she's the man.
My two cents: gesture is just a way to find the absolute essence of a pose that you continue to develop beyond the gesture. It's... hard to explain any better than that because it's a hard concept to comprehend. It's not logical; it's emotional. The abstract energy of a form. And everybody sucks at it. Until they don't.
If it makes you feel any better, I practice quick-sketch all the time and I still suck at it. Here's a page I did last night, using the poses in the gesture ebook Melanie linked as reference, as well as one of my own references. Resounding mehs haha.
Thanks for chiming in, Brother. And for the encouragement. You may be right about the proportions... And thanks for sharing your work. I dig the inclusion of value in yours. The clothes on your two minute girl remind me of Josh Black for that reason.
Still think your self portrait is cool as hell. I saw some of Jeff Watts paintings shortly after you shared that and the combination of the two changed my mind about painting. It could be something to play with in the distant future...
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4d
Hi Tim! I disagree with you on the wretchedness, I think these drawings have good flow and are solidly three dimensional. I especially love drawing on the right side of the two page spread. You can feel the twist of the torso and the weight that is held in her left arm.
Something that can start to help you over time (not quite a quick fix) is to develop shorthands for different types of anatomy & the rhythms that connect them. I highly recommend taking a look through the Rhythms Ebook from the basics course if you haven't already (https://www.proko.com/course-lesson/ebook-rhythms). This is a great starting point for developing your own shorthands for anatomy. I say 'over time' because in order to make these shorthands your own you have to practice and experiment with them, which really just takes repetition. Also, as you study more reference images you'll find common patterns in the shapes that will inform the development of your shorthands.
Loosening up your lines could help more immediately. You don't want to go too crazy to the point that you lose all clarity, but gesture drawings are good opportunities to try out more experimental lines. Rhythms are the energetic connections between forms. You may have to exaggerate more than you feel is necessary to truly express that energy and movement in a static image.
I've attached a page of my 1 minute gesture drawing below. They are made of shapes that I've developed over time doing lots of 1 minute drawings. Parts of the figure are represented with one or two simple lines, because I felt those marks were sufficient to express the potential energy that I saw in the pose, or on the flip side, maybe I felt they weren't so important that I needed to make a shape out of them.
I hope this gives you somewhere to start working off of. Let me know if you have any thoughts!
My last one today. Is this a gesture drawing or did I fall into the contour trap? Thank you for your patience with my confusion.
Thank you kindly for your thoughtful response. I wonder if a good way to internalize shorthand would be to simply copy gesture drawings?
I think one thing I've struggled with is when a simple tube is appropriate for appendages and when to add more structure. I've not been able to effectively implement this simplification without feeling as though I've completely lost the form.
The looseness of lines concept is one I think I'm struggling with, too. I think I'm not yet getting the pace of execution correct. I'm pulling the line relatively quickly in an attempt for better line quality. Maybe I'm also not holding back enough to see the line on the page clearly enough before execution? In music, I have my students practice the physical execution of movements very slowly. This allows their conscious minds to stay ahead of the central nervous system in order to appropriately grease the groove and learn the motor pattern correctly. But here, moving slowly seems like the antithesis of the goal. I'm not sure how to navigate this aspect. And maybe this is the entirety of my issue? Perhaps the proportions get better if I get this seemingly esoteric concept correct. Sorry if I'm over intellectualizing, but this is how my brain works.
Thank you again for your time.
I struggle with gesture even though we start every session of the figure drawing class I'm taking with 15-20 minutes of gesture.
What I'm getting from gesture though is that the main point is to capture the movement and angles of the model, it is not shape or outline. In fact most of the gesture will disappear under your completed drawing.
I don't think you will regret the figure drawing class. I'm doing one in person at the local college rather than one of those offered here. I do plan to doing one of courses offered here as well at some point.
Drawing basics covers, well the basics, figure drawing is entirely its own thing although of course everything in the basics class will carry over into other more specific aspects of drawing.
