Nice work! I especially like the first one because of your different types of lines, it's really fun. A little feedback I have would be to try focusing less on the outer contour, and make sure you're starting out with laying in the shapes that make up the inner structure, like marking where the ribcage is and the spine (line of action), and maybe angles of the limbs as well. Doing so will help capture the gesture of the pose and build an understanding of proportions, and establish your rhythm for building figures :)

These are really nice gesture drawings! When you hold your pencil, are you using a tripod grip or an overhand grip? Your lines get a bit hairy in some places so it seems like you might be focusing on the contours. That could possibly be where the feeling of over-complication is stemming from. I find that using an overhand grip makes it easier to simplify to gestural lines because you're using your whole arm.

Looking pretty good! You're looking at all the correct things to focus on for rhythms, and it's great you're thinking about how it extends to appendages, too. I like to think about how they support the main energy flow -- so looking at the main body's line of action (especially the torso's direction), and seeing if I can push the limbs to continue that same motion. Sometimes just exaggerating a touch in that direction helps reinforce the idea in an overall stronger way. I do think you're on the right track with gesture practice. At this point, I would recommend you check out some proportion guidelines to help inform your placement of certain landmarks. Even just knowing the general gist both helps gesture tremendously and also gets you started to dive into anatomy. I recommend this video on general proportions: https://www.proko.com/course-lesson/human-proportions-average-figure Hope this helps, let me know if you have any questions! :)

Good job on these, you really captured the movements and I can see you utilizing the concept of rhythms!

These look good! And yeah, it's hard trying something new and pushing yourself, but that is where the most growth will happen. One trick when I'm trying to find more rhythm in my figures is to draw my figures a little off balance, trying to capture the feeling right before they are about to take another step and catch themselves. As humans we have a really good sense of other humans movement, and using this technique plays on that, where we can almost feel the character in motion. This technique doesn't work for all poses, but it is a fun idea to play around with and makes the job of exaggerating the pose a lot easier. I've included a couple of sketches based on your work to illustrate the idea. Again, good work and keep it up!

Overhand grip, charcoal sharpened like a bullet.

These look awesome! Looking at your first few posts I see a lot of improvement, especially in your line quality. These lines seem much more confident than your in your first attempts. Moving forward, you could work on more exaggeration with your gestures. Don't be afraid to push too much, because you can always reel it back in with another iteration. Pushing too far is better than not pushing far enough. Keep in mind the angles of the shoulders and hips, and really emphasize any pinch and stretch that you see in these poses. If you give it a try, feel free to post them here and I'll take a look!

These gestures are looking good! I think you're on the right track. It's good that you're noticing what it feels like when you use too many curves, you should try using only straights, and see how that feels, then do a mix of the two, etc. You'll start to get an understanding for what works best for you. There's no pressure or expectation for what a gesture drawing should look like, it's just how you see the action of the body in a simplified way. They're not meant to be finished drawings, they're a framework for the pose you'll develop later in the drawing with structure, anatomy, and value. Think more like an abstract shape design at this stage, structure comes later. Rhythms help keep the gesture tied together, making sure all parts of body work together as one. The head is rhythmically connected to the feet. That's how we keep balance. Look for that long rhythm at the center of the body, from the pit of the neck to the inside of the ankle. You're looking for and using rhythms nicely in these gestures to find connections in the body which is great to see. In your first gesture I love seeing that you connected the right shoulder to the forearm and wrist through the body with a long swoopy C-curve. That's a great rhythm, it keeps the shoulder feeling connected to the forearm and hand in one line. Take a look at the Demos and Critique for this project , I think they will answer some of your questions. Also check out Mike Mattesi's video in this lesson group on shapes, it may help with a few of your shape questions, and balancing straights and curves. Keep up the good work, hope this helps! https://www.proko.com/course-lesson/demo-rhythms-level-1 https://www.proko.com/course-lesson/critique-rhythms https://www.proko.com/course-lesson/dead-vs-live-shapes-with-mike-mattesi

Hey @Mariah these are looking good! It takes some time to adjust to drawing larger, but your proportions are looking pretty close overall. I'd say the heads look slightly large here and there, but your eye and hand will catch up quickly. I find it's actually easier to be more accurate when you draw larger, but you need to slow down a bit, and consciously plan out each mark before making it. Ghosting each line as lightly as possible, almost like rehearsing the line before committing to it, helps you balance proportion, and rhythm. You don't need to solve both at the same time. If you're light and gestural with your initial lines, you can then measure and commit to the correct line and proportion when you're ready. It takes some time, and might feel like a bit of a step back at first, but eventually you'll naturally find your tempo. Some of your lay-in construction lines are jumping out a bit around your final lines, so I think you could try to lighten up your hand a bit. I've found maintaining a very sharp, very long tapered point to the charcoal helps me keep a lighter touch. The thinner and sharper the taper, the more you have to lighten up your hand, and work up on the tip of the charcoal to get a light thin line that can be erased and adjusted easily. If you wield your hand too heavily you'll either make too dark a mark mark that can't be easily erased, or worse, you'll break the charcoal and have to resharpen it. I like to stretch my arm and shoulder a bit before working in charcoal on a large format paper, and do at least a large practice sheet or two of warmups to really get my arm, and the point of the charcoal dialed in. On a practice page, try to make different lines as light as possible to find where your lines start to become difficult to fully erase with a kneaded eraser. Once you start to get an idea for what erases cleanly, that's a good indicator of how to proceed with your lay in lines. Keep up the routine, and you'll see your hand start to dial in quickly! Hope this helps!

Ok my another attempt for Pose 1, I’m not sure how to fix the hands issue (like I can tell somethings wrong but I’m not sure how to fix it?) Appreciate a little guidance here if possible please, thank you so much!

Nice, you're capturing good simplifications and proportions for the human figure, which is in of itself a challenging task. I think now that you're feeling more comfortable with the placement and knowledge of the limbs, you can use the simplified lines to further emphasize the line of action and flow of the pose itself. It helps to think: what is the most important part of this pose with the most force/action/push-and-pull going on? From there, you can use the lines to emphasize that area, by exaggerating/emphasizing the flow and having the rest of the lines follow in that flow of energy. So in the first example, the pulling of the rope is the key idea, which you can really see stretch through her left arm (which is the area I emphasized by exaggerating the line's curvature a bit, and having the opposing side's ribcage area push into that curve more). From there, the secondary lines still can emphasize that flow, such as straightening the leg to show the flow of energy going downwards. I hope this helps think about how to capture the main idea and energy of a pose, let me know if you have any questions! :)

These figures are lovely, you captured the movement and gestures so well!

Some older ones that didnt fit in the previous post. I also tried applying the assignement to make an anime character, rhythms turned out pretty good! Last Image is the reference Image I used.