Hi everyone! I've been practicing gesture for a while now and wanted to ask you what you think of these. Sometimes the poses are still falling apart and sometimes the gesture isn't quite there yet. But in general, would you say, these lines convey a sense of gesture and/or weight? What do you think could definitely be improved? What has helped you to understand gesture drawing better (beyond just doing gesture drawing and learning anatomy/ perspective and stuff)? Looking forward to your comments/critiques! Thanks in advance.

Thank you so much for the honorable mention! Unfortunately the art posted under my name in the results page is not mine... ^^' It should be this instead:

Holy cow! I can’t believe it! This was really exciting, and a great experience overall!

I absolutely love the brush work, the selection of a square brush for those highlights worked really well. I don’t know if it is intentional, but the triangular shape of the water bag is very bossy for me, my eye is immediately drawn to that shape, and locks there. Then I look at the face, where it looks like the water is going into his nose. Maybe reduce the chin strap, and lower the hand so the water is more clearly aligned with the mouth. The disc shape on the right shoulder is larger than the disk shapes on the left shoulder. I think it should be smaller, as is it feels like it is breaking the perspective. The leather strap on the water bag is fabulous. I absolutely love the graceful swoop of that line. But the way the shadows are placed make it look like the strap inverts. Thinking of that line like a letter U, the left leg should be closer to the viewer, and the right leg should be further. At the top, this appears correct. But at the bottom, it looks like the left leg is suddenly further from the viewer than the right leg. I think it’s the shadow at the bottom of the loop that’s doing it. Finally, that nose - wow. I love the way the light hits it, and the shape of the bridge. The tone you chose for the side of the nose is perfect. I really genuinely like this, it tells a story, and is very easy to read, but it’s simultaneously packed with intricacy and painterly details that make me want to keep looking, hunting for more. Really well done

Hi, I used my own photography taken at Geneva Lake, the weather has been in the lower teens and dipping below zero making it unsutable for painting out. I loved the challenge of painting from photos and small. I used M Graham Gouache on cur Bristol board. Thank You for the challenge. Thinking that this might be perfect for a morning exercise.

Credit for Photos from Unsplash: Randy Laybourne (upper left) Chris Montgomery (upper left recliner) Marc Olivier Jodoin (upper middle) Zoltan Tasi (upper right) Christopher Windus (lower left) Cédric Dhaenens (lower right)

Hi everyone, here is my selection of 5 thumbnail for this month's challenge. I've painted with a limited palette of watercolors used as gouache by adding white gouache to them. The colours I've used are: - Yellow Ochre - Hansa Yellow - French Ultramarine - Phthalo Blue GS - Venetian Red - Sap Green Thank you for this challenge, it was great fun painting these and I've become much more confident in the process. All the reference photos were taken by me.

Hello everybody! I think I've never done thumbnails before (or maybe once but a long time ago?), so it was definitely a challenge. This challenge was very fun and I've definitely learned a lot and gained confidence through each thumbnail. As I'm mostly a line artist, painting was a challenge and I realised how important it is to be decisive about your brushstrokes to prevent wonky shapes. It was also nice to see how light and shadow help create depth and volume! And of course how light and very saturated color can attract one gaze. I'm definitely going to make more thumbnails in the futur :) My thumbnails were done digitally, using one main textured brush and a wet brush. Would loved to make them traditionnaly but I'm just getting used to watercolor and mixing colors, so...maybe next time! I've decided to go with the theme of the torii, as they are numerous out there in Japan, all different and sometimes in very surprising places! Decided to give each thumbnails at least a lady with an umbrella, as I found the repetition pretty fun. Now that I have more confidence, I believe next time I'll detach myself more from the reference and allow to play with much interesting colors! All the references photos come from unsplash! (I'm posting them below since only 10 pictures are allowed per post)

Here are my thumbnails. (The first image is my submission, the others are just my practice versions. I included them because I don’t have source photos.) I learned a TON by doing this. I got a much better handle on water control, and composition simplification by painting these thumbnails over and over until I was happy with the direction. I intended to paint landscapes reminiscent of scenes you might find in my home state of Ohio. In each scene I tried to incorporate a mix of lost and found edges to help evoke feelings of nostalgia and solitude. These are all watercolor on paper. (Daniel Smith pigments, and 140# cold press Arches paper.) These were painted with Escoda Reserva brushes sizes 4 and up. For each thumbnail, I used the same palette consisting of Carbazole Violet, Cerulean, Phthalo Blue, Cobalt Teal, Ultramarine Turquoise, Pyrrol Orange, Prussian Blue, Indanthrone Blue, Quinacridone Rose, Carmine, Raw Umber, Burnt Sienna, Hansa Yellow Light, and Quinopthalone Yellow.

This was a really fun #prokochallenge and what better way to get to grips with my new ipad. So my  2"x2” thumbnails are all done digitally. I actually live in Iceland but have spent an extended holiday visiting my family in England, after a long time it was so nice to be back, so these thumbs are based on my own photos taken from my walks in the in the charming Lincolnshire countryside! It’s so beautiful and heartwarming returning to a familiar landscape, so it was fun to spend some time on these and really appreciate the area while I was there.

Thank you for this opportunity to observe my New Jersey neighborhood in gouache.

This is my contribution to this month challenge. This has been a great exercise! I feel I have learned a lot already making these.

Joseph Zbukvic.

5-ую еще отправлю я здесь первый раз

These are all my 20 attempts for this challenge. I was about to pick the best 5 of them, but it is my understanding by reading some comments that we are now allowed to post more than 5. The lesson notes say that we are supposed to submit 5 thumbnails, so I'm quite confused about the official submission request for this challenge. Anyway I hope you'll find these thumbnails interesting: a couple of them are duplicates because they didn't turn out as I wanted and I repainted them, they might be useful for who is stuck where I was!

I updated my digital versions of the landscape thumbnails, with stronger contrast and chroma and resolution. I tried to keep very loose and work fast on this set without overthinking. All were done in one sitting from observation as the sun was setting at my house, and then updated from memory in a second sitting. It would be interesting to return to gouache on a third set. What do you think?

My first 5 attempts of 2"x2" landscape thumbnails. Photoshop. Reference images I took myself. Except the image on the top right.

Tomorrow, I will iterate on one of these for my third thumbnail, any suggestions on which one I should pursue?

Additional thumbnails painted with gouache from my imagination related to landscape.