A Gesture Drawing question

[Demy]

I've done (and continue doing) gesture drawings like I'm supposed to. But sometimes I wonder if the gesture is supposed to be...comprehensible I suppose. Not that I deliberately try to make it look incomprehensible or anything, but its sort of difficult to make it look "polished" (if that's the right word to use) so I try to focus on making the pose/gesture come across well and so that I can learn from it.

Of course with more time you could focus on details and stuff like that but I think that might be besides the point.

I guess the question I'm trying to ask is if I (and other artists) need to focus on making the drawing look "good" (if that's the right word for it) along with getting the pose across and exaggerating it. Or if the focus should just be to keep focusing on the pose and learn from that.

[Kayke]

It's good to vary the amount of time you spend on gesture drawings, doing some quick ones and some longer more detailed ones. Shorter poses are good for anatomy and longer poses let you focus on little details like how clothing falls around a person's form (if you're drawing from clothed models, if not it'll still let you focus on things like light and form).

It's not so much about making it look good as it is about what you're learning from studying a pose with more intensity. It's like flexing a different artistic muscle.

[Devika]

If we're talking pure gesture drawing: The number one priority is conveying the pose as simply as possible. If it's done in one line, so be it! Clarity and ease of reading comes first - but when you have that down, you can keep polishing for as long as you want. The gesture is the basis of any drawing, and you can keep building indefinitely on that. Different schools teach differently though, especially in regards to what they consider a "gesture drawing".

You ask if you should focus on making the drawing look "good". That depends on your definition, but if you ask me a gesture should primarily be conveying just that - the pose, the emotion, the story - and if it does that, it's good. You shouldn't have to render it in order to make it legible! If you do, the fundamentals of the drawing are flawed.

If you're aiming at becoming better at rendering, or perhaps anatomy, then your focus should be on that, and then it doesn't have to be a gesture to begin with. I do gestures to warm up and to practice emotion, fluidity and all that. That being said, good anatomy definitely helps bringing a pose across.

The picture below is from Proko's video on the topic, and as you can see, it's very clear what these characters are doing and feeling, yet they're not rendered in the least. There is a bias in google when you search for "gesture drawing", because all the prettily rendered stuff comes out on top. Don't be fooled. They don't work unless this v v v v is on point.

When an artist has both gesture and anatomy down though - then they can crack out detailed bodies in very short time, and that's when you get these "pretty" gestures!

I hope this helps! If you share some of your gestures you're struggling with we could give some more specific feedback too!

[Demy]

It helped thanks for that post!

I'm pretty sure my problem with gesture drawing in general seems to be me not finishing in time than me actually struggling with specific poses.

I think my problem might be that I struggle with getting gestures down quickly (even though I've watched many videos covering gesture drawing), or maybe I have an issue with getting started on some poses. Or maybe its just an anatomy issue (I need to work on that anyway).

Or its most likely all of that.

I guess I could share a few gesture drawings.

This is my most recent one. I can see the issues pretty clearly. A lot of it is unfinished, though I try to get the line of action down to get the pose, but it ends up looking unfinished and, to me at least, almost incomprehensible. I'm pretty sure I felt a bit out of it though so that might have been the case,

This one I feel is a bit better, though still not great. I probably need to stop using a circle as a head, I take a bit too long to draw hands and feet which is why they are either not drawn or have shapes that act as a substitute for actual hands/feet (or I have none at all), and I still have the issue of not entirely finishing my gestures.

I know what I need to improve on (I think. You and other people might have more to add), but I'm not sure how to go about doing it besides breaking out of those bad habits.

[Kayke]

I think part of the issue might be that you're not drawing the full figures. A lot of gesture drawing is seeing how certain parts of the body relate to other parts of the body and ultimately that helps you draw figures without reference more quickly in the future.

And instead of drawing the line of action and then trying to outline the figure, have you considered breaking it into shapes? I'm not sure if you're doing these for a class and have specific instructions, but roughing in the form as basic shapes is my favorite way to get the essence of a pose. I just knocked out a 2 min pose from line-of-action.com to show what I mean.

I started with the line of action but then blocked out the chest and hips. I'm a little rusty, so it's not perfect, I def made the one arm too long and could have spent more time on the placement of the feet... which I can only tell because i can see how they're relating to the rest of the figure.

Also you could try drawing colored pencil? I'm not sure why but that always made my figure/gesture drawings better. There's something about not having the option to erase and also being able to get varied lines. Same with charcoal sticks... but I hate getting messy fingers so I always leaned toward colored pencils, especially the leadless ones!

[Demy]

I tried that before but I think I stopped because it made me draw the whole figure slower. I was doing 45 second gestures for both. And I don't have specific instructions, I am just trying to figure out how I can do gestures effectively.

Maybe I should try doing longer gestures perhaps? Also, I guess I could try using pen to do gestures again.

[Devika]

Firstly, there is absolutely no shame in beginning with 2-minute gestures until you feel comfortable. On the contrary, take that time to get the muscle memory and eye practice, and then after a while cut it down to 90 seconds, 60 seconds, 30 seconds. There's no rule saying you should stick below x seconds, but you can try to choose a time that's juuust a bit too short for you, so you don't get stuck with the details. The point is to force yourself to work on the big things first!

I agree with Kayke in that you should start with the whole, then go into individual body parts. (Lots of great advice from her!) Here's something I whipped together to describe how I go about gesture drawing, I just picked the first pic that came up on the fantastic link kayke shared. (Disclaimer: I'm. not. a. pro.)

As I was starting out with gesture drawing I first only did lines of action for poses (which should always be a simple line - C, S, or I). This is really abstract, but try to think of it as if you simplify the whole pose, the intent behind it, into that one line, in this case "about to cut". Then I moved to the shape, trying to distill the poses into one solid shape. This helps immensely with building awareness for the silhouette of the pose, which determines both the legibility and "drama level".

The next step is to draw in the simplest shapes of the pose you can, fitting them as closely as possible to the shape you drew. Don't be afraid to exaggerate, as you can see I bent the back and front knee more. Of course you can push it much, much further if you so wish! I don't actually draw out the second step every time anymore, but I do draw the line of action and then keep the shape in mind when drawing the gesture. It's still there - just mentally.

Now if you have time left, you can begin blocking in shades if needed, and/or add more parts to the drawing. Don't dive into details, it's more of a natural continuation of the third step: Keep adding the next most important thing to make the drawing understandable until your time runs out.

Oh and another thing: I added a foot! If you feel that the photo is lacking something, or if you can just do this one little thing to make the whole pose more impactful, such as moving the arm a little or turning the head a little.. or a lot.. do it! I felt that leaving the foot out would look a little strange, as if I'd forgotten it, while drawing it in would emphasize that step forward. (That being said, I'm nooot quite sure what the model is attempting to do. I instead ascribed the meaning "about to cut" to him and went with that.)

[punkarsenic]

the gesture drawing is the worlds simplest, most expressive cartoon. more or less. so its definitely meant to be comprehensible; youre simplifying the movement down to its bare bones, so thats all and exactly what you can see.

but polished it certainly is not.a gesture drawing looks 'good' if its clear, which means concise lines where every line serves in showing the movement. the anatomy should be more or less correct - to the extent of basic 'arms are this long, torso this long, or else it looks proper weird' proportions work. if you have more time, id say go into form instead of detail, because tilts and twists are difficult to capture in gesture alone. add a nice bean body to the mix.

[Demy]

Thank you for your reply. I feel like I got a better idea of how to approach gesture drawing from this point forward.

I noticed that you and @Kayke have very different approaches to gesture. In that you seem to draw the shape first then use simpler shapes to get the gesture across while Kayke focuses on the structure of the figure and works from there. I guess its what works for you both, so that probably means I need to find out what works for me.

I'll probably keep both of your comments as reference. Lots of good advice in both.

Might take a while to break my earlier habits though. Two minute gestures sound like a good idea to start breaking those though.

[Devika]

That's great! And yeah, we do, and I'm sure there are many other ways too. This particular one works for me because I have problems with stiffness in my drawings, and this is a great way for me to fight it and detach from "body part thinking".

Good luck!

[Demy]

Here are a few of the more recent ones i did today. I tried to sketch out the chest first which sort of helped it look more comprehensible i guess.

Quite a bit of the anatomy is off however. The linework is a bit messy too. But i think i captured the pose, though i don't think it looks very good. Which probably is because i'm still not used to the speed even though i put it to 2 minutes.

Any criticisms?

[Devika]

It looks like you're finishing more of them now, which is great! Hands and feet are very important for the poses. The poses are coming across as well. At this point I'd just say you need to get the mileage down and practice.

The linework is a bit messy too.

This will become less of a problem the more confident you get. If there's one thing you could keep in mind to improve that it's to make as long lines as possible. Don't worry too much about little bumps on the way, if you can connect the line from the shoulder to the foot with one long curved line, go for it! It's both faster and more dynamic! (And you scribble less) See below for an example from Alex Woo's blog:

[Demy]

Okay. This is the last time i should bump this thread.

These are the latest gestures i did. Would anyone mind critiquing them? The anatomy is still off for the gestures and some poses aren't exactly finished. But the pose seems clear, i think. Maybe this is improvement?

What do you guys think?