This week, practice drawing the bean from the pose photos at proko.com/poses. It shouldn’t take you more than 30 seconds to a minute for each pose. Look for tilting, leaning, twisting, and foreshortening. Exaggerate the motion and draw the two volumes, the skin in between, and the centerline.

Post your work and participate.

Hayden

Only 4 days (sessions) but I see a bit of improvement in the proportions so I just want to know if I'm on the right track and what are my biggest weak points. I plan on having at least 14 sessions or 300 beans so I'll add those in the replies here. I wish you all a fun and effective journey with your art courses!

@dwt12345

Some 45 second beans.

Vin

Hello, sorry I use the preview photos for reference. I purchased 2 sets, but these preview are convenient for upload ( the photo are combine in one page). If this is not allowed , I will remove them. Here are my first time attempts for beans, super fun! And it did help me not to consider too much about detail. I would like to add this practice in my daily routine. I would appreciate for some feedback. Thank you.

@liquid

13d

Hello, Studying the "bean" I'm still having problems with seated/twisted poses, but hopefully, with practice, I'll get better at those :)

Luka Reinmöller

21d

Hello! This is my very first attempt on the "bean" and I'm really loving this approach so far. Though I still struggle to get the motion fluid in gesture drawings I find myself being much more "in the zone" with the bean. Maybe it will help me with my future gesture studies as well? Would someone be so kind to critique my beans? Thank you very much in advance!

Ethan Cossett

24d

Hi folks! Been spending several weeks to really master the bean before moving further; after a dozen-plus pages of similar-looking beans I think I need an outside perspective to keep from getting stuck making the same mistakes. Most beans I did working very lightly with a 0.9 mechanical pencil, but below are my first beans with charcoal on newsprint--they turned out a little looser and less structurally solid, but I think they're also more revealing of my weak points. They're referenced off of Proko's "Mallory" photoset. Where should I be focusing my energy most? I'm struggling to keep the gesture of the bean and human proportion in mind at the same time (most of my beans end up too elongated), or to indicate the roundness of the bean without turning into a mushy peanut. Any critique is welcomed, thanks community!

@quantumbucket

1mo

Hi! I'm not sure to understand: for the assignment, are we supposed to use the sample poses on the page of that specific photo pack? or do we have to pay for it? Or maybe the photos were available for free for premium users of this course at some point? Thanks! Great videos :)

Kevin C

2mo

Submitting some of my beans. Some I tried to do pretty quickly. Some I tried to take my time with and thing of "as a finished piece" like Stan said in one of his critiques. Overall, pretty happy with these. Fun to do as warm-ups. Apologies, switched sketchbooks halfway through, so the last two are on gray paper.

Jesper Axelsson

1mo

Looking good👍 You might appreciate using the bean in some gesture quicksketches, so that you get to put it into the context of telling the story of a pose - You might benefit from doing this Warmup - Mushrooms to build more confidence in drawing round forms. Cheers!

@thesmokingrotoscope

2mo

Another truncated attempt at the bean on both a handful of poses from the demo videos, as well as some poses found on other reference sites (the rest of my attempts are spread out amongst the demos; made the mistake of posting them there rather than here.) I'm still having some trouble figuring out how to determine which oval overlaps the other (though I started to see that it has at least something to do with proximity to the viewer), as well as the path the center line takes in figures with a greater amount of twist to them. As always, any help is appreciated!

hArtMann

2mo

Gave myself 1 minute to do each one. I messed up mainly on the twisting ones.

Gabriel Azzalos

2mo

I love these. The clean lines.

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Ren

2mo

Here are all of my bean studies from this week! Things might look a little repetitive since I often would draw my interpretation first (beans marked 1) and then study proko's drawing (labeled 2) as I made my way through the example videos. Also started incorporating the bean into some gesture drawings, which has been an interesting exercise since I usually start figures with the head. Going to spend another week practicing beans and gesture together before I move on to the next section!

Gabriel Azzalos

2mo

Wow! Beautiful design. I hope to get there at some point too! You look like you have good experience with drawing.

michael gilbert

2mo

@needsmuchhelp

3mo

I tried a couple would love to know how I can improve

@nemuiyo

3mo

angelina andreas

4mo

@colesdawg

3mo

That 6th bean is nice. with the others I think you might have tried to over complicate it a tad. for some of them, try to just see where the two parts of the bean (torso/pelvis) are in relation to each other and then you can add stuff like the folds etc.

Yuliia Poperechna

4mo

Jesper Axelsson

4mo

Hi @Yuliia Poperechna, nice drawings! I think you did a good job capturing the gesture of the torso! - The mass for the ribcage and the hip feel a bit inconsistent. If you compare the two bottom left drawings for example; the ribcage and pelvis masses are more wide than they are tall in the drawing to the right, while they are taller in the drawing to the left. Try to keep the ribcage and hip mass consistent (while keeping variations between individuals in mind). If you want a template, you could think of the ribcage as an egg, and the hip as a flattened sphere. - Related to my first note, you might find it useful to think of the bean as being actual pieces; a ribcage piece and a hip piece that both stay quite consistent, and a middle piece that reacts to how the other pieces move. You could think of it like you're having a puppet in front of you that you're posing to match the reference. Thinking of it as a movable puppet built out of distinct pieces can help with: making the drawing feel more three dimensional consitency in proportions figuring out tricky poses, such as twists making sure that your not losing any parts (forgetting the waist for example, or making it too narrow) I hope this helps :)

@michael_idahosa

4mo

Bean drawings. Any area to improve on?

@colesdawg

3mo

The beans are looking good. This maybe a bad point thats completely wrong, but I feel like you might be drawing a tad too tense, at least thats what I feel from looking at the lines. Try to relax your hand a bit, you can still be accurate.

@slyx

5mo

bean moment,, any critique would be greatly appreciated!! these were drawn with a 6b and an 8b pencil, i tend to prefer the smoothness. I'm looking to incorporate gesture drawing and maybe the bean into my daily warm ups. I'm curious as to how you guys go about it? Thanks!

@colesdawg

3mo

not sure what specifically you need to work on to improve, i think this is a case of just carrying on and remember to keep a keen eye when doing this.

Noe Luis

5mo

Day 2 in studying the Bean these 3 pictures on the right were tough to figure out because of the the more action the models are given

Noe Luis

5mo

Day 1 in studying the Bean I choose the picture on the right to see if capture the form because they were quite a challenge for me

Charlie Nicholson

5mo

yeah, those are some difficult poses to capture, but it looks like you did a good job realizing them

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Stan Prokopenko

Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.