Hi Michael, I just thought I’d add some input from the perspective of someone who’s new to drawing, but essentially I can only echo everything Dan has said. TLDR: detailed study of anatomy won’t cure what ails ye - take the Drawing Basics course even if it hurts, you will find the keys that open these doors and many more! To answer your initial question, you definitely don’t need a strong knowledge of human anatomy in order to do gesture drawing. Of course, that knowledge is going to help raise your game, and is part of what differentiates great artists from the rest of us, but it’s not necessary to get started. To back that assertion up, I offer the following: 1. The free Proko ebook on rhythms (available to download in the Shapes section of the ‘Drawing Basics’ class - zero anatomy 2. When we’re introduced to drawing gestures in the ‘Drawing Basics’ course, Stan has us drawing seals, or sea lions - he’s not sure, but pinnipeds of some kind. Pretty sure none of us are experts on seal anatomy, but we can still capture the movement/gesture in their poses. 3. Gesture Drawing for Animation by Walt Stanchfield (215 pages - zero exposition of anatomy) “I'm not advocating abandoning the study of the figure. Anatomy is a vital tool in drawing—but don't mesmerize yourself into thinking that knowing the figure is going to make an artist of you. What is going to make an artist out of you is a combination of a few basic facts about the body, a few basic principles of drawing and an extensive, obsessive desire and urge to express your feelings and impressions.” 4. Gesture Drawing A Story-Based Approach by April Connors (235 pages, the word ‘anatomy’ appears on only 35 of them, but not importantly enough to appear in the Index. 5. The Proko Gesture Course by Steven Michael Hampton (on my to-do list!) only covers Anatomy at the very end in the “Beyond Gesture” section. In his amazing Figure Drawing - Design and Invention book, Michael Hampton does cover quite a lot of anatomy, but with a focus on the gesture, shape and volume of the various body parts. But, he also points to only eight parts of the body being foundation to capture gesture. For where I am in my art journey today, I think gesture drawing (especially of people) is a deceptively challenging form of art. We watch the masters rapidly lay down a few expressive strokes of charcoal and something amazing appears on the paper - but, as Dan said, we don’t see the years of practice and learning that went into them getting to that point and we shouldn’t beat ourselves up that we are so far from it. Taken literally, capturing the gesture of a pose is to communicate its movement and by implication convey the beauty in the life that it portrays. I guess that’s why we don’t use robots as gesture models, at least not yet!. I’m not at all satisfied with the gesture drawings I made for the ‘Drawing Basics’ course (you can see them in my albums) - they’re ‘okay’ for what I’m able to do right now, but I know they could be so much better and studying this art form further is on my roadmap. I’ve just finished the Proko ‘Drawing Basics’ course and I couldn’t recommend it enough. I did it in three months because I know myself - if I didn’t push myself to study every day and work towards an aggressive deadline, there was every chance I would find something ‘too hard’, take a break, and not come back. It’s not cheap, and it’s the most I’ve spent on an online course, but it’s worth every cent and could justifiably be more expensive. The amount of free content in the course is pretty amazing but I would recommend purchasing the full version if you can, because then you get the demo videos, which are usually more in depth lessons as Stan really shows and explains each topic. Three months is probably too short for this course, I would say at least six gives you the time to really practice each new aspect, but the course is designed with two levels so it makes it easy for us to go back and do it again (even better value for money). The lessons on line, shapes, and intuitive perspective in particular, might really help unlock some gesture drawing doors for you. Other than that, what Dan said! Hope that helps in some way. Cheers, T

I only have the skills to give my anecdotal experience, which you should take with a bucket of salt, but I dived into gesture drawing recently after being inspired by some amazing artists here. But my ability to quickly judge proportions by eye is currently atrocious as I've had a multi-year break in my art, so I've not been that impressed either by my work - I'd says yours is better than mine though, and I like many of your gesture drawings. I've decided to drop trying to do 30 sec/1 min gesture drawings (perhaps running before walking) and instead spend 10-20 mins drawing a pose accurately with the hope that I will learn that way, to boost my (simple) anatomical knowledge and observation skills. I also plan to work on volume visualisation. I've heard some people suggest you should stick to one thing, and others say work on multiple things so I really don't know what advice to take, but I'm going to try the latter for a bit. Best of luck with your work

Sup Michael. Maybe you can't, but I definitely see improvement. Your lines feel more confident and your shape/proportion seems better developed. There's more flow to the gesture, too, maybe less overthinking? You ARE growing! Even though your attitude is fantastic, don't beat yourself up either. Nobody's gesture drawings are masterpieces, especially at first, and not even master artists can consistently churn out greatness in this field. Unless they're Jeff Watts. But Jeff literally has 10,000+ hours more experience than almost anyone else. That's showing up with consistency for decades... not weeks. And that's just it. All this is practice, and practice creates progress, even if the results aren't what you wanted. Keep showing up, and you'll improve. As far as anatomy is concerned, if you can develop the ability to draw what you see, you won't need deep anatomical knowledge to make technically sound (realistic) art. Anatomy is kind of the next level, if you ask me. Learn to replicate what you see first. This is the foundation of realism. Then learning to understand what you see will make sense (anatomy, gesture, etc.). Then you can learn to manipulate/exaggerate/improve what you see (illustration, fine art, etc.). If you can't recreate what you see on the basic level, then all the knowledge in the world won't make a lick of difference. Make sense? If you don't understand what you're looking at, then how can you improve it? Levels, bro. Take it one step at a time. Gain XP. Try Proko's Drawing Basics course next? You got this!

Hey Michael, I'd say you certainly can improve without a deep understanding anatomy but a few reference points to understand how the different limbs connect, etc... can help figuring out how to build coherent bodies without getting in the details of each muscles groups and all. I'd say understanding the simplified shape of the ribcage (egg) and hips (pantie), how they relate to each other and the overall proportions of the different limbs are the most useful things to improve in the first steps