Let's do How to Draw Gesture together (nudity)
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@Susan-Marks I did a similar thing, I watched part of video (just the 30 second poses part) and then I went back and paused it and sketched and then watched him sketch again.......learned a bunch that way. Today I am going to watch the rest of the video and do some more drawing. Hopefully can get 20 of them in. I think yours are looking like a great start....someone mentioned maybe more flowing lines, i think that is spot on advice
gonna try to post some of mine soon -
this is lame but I still am having trouble uploading lol. I scanned in a couple of the darker ones, everything esle is too light......actually the scan doesn't pick up all the lines but c'est la vie. i'll dig out my camera later! A bit strapped on time !
Today I am watching rest of the second video and practicing again for at least 30 minutes, aiming for 20 poses so that would be 40 minutes actually...Scan0023.pdf -
@DLArmantrout Those look pretty nice for 1 minute poses, but I agree with you that you should aim for the line of action instead of trying for contours. In the second video in the class Stan says "It's important to draw what you feel, not what you see." He talks a little about avoiding the contours too. If you have time to get the contours in that's cool, but start with the line of action and capturing the action of the pose.
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@Coley You can always do them in pen. It's a bit scary since you can't erase, but these are so quick erasing is usually a moot point.
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@DLArmantrout welcome to the fun. If you get a chance to watch the class videos, Proko calls or specifically what to focus in (and what not to). His suggestions helped me, bit advice here in the thread gave me a boost. Shortening the time down to 30 second poses helped me run out of time before the details. Keep at it!
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@Coley @SketchyArtish thanks for the feedback and encouragement.
So exactly what is a flowing line? One with a curve? Should I “always” start with a curve? I ask with humility.
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@Susan-Marks said in Let's do How to Draw Gesture together (nudity):
@Coley @SketchyArtish thanks for the feedback and encouragement.
So exactly what is a flowing line? One with a curve? Should I “always” start with a curve? I ask with humility.
Usually. Look for the main line of action, which will depend on the view. On the back it's the spine. On the front it kind of goes through the sternum and belly button, to the crotch. Sometimes in a profile you have to just pick one of those two. The main line sometimes continues through the legs or arms. If it's not a completely stiff pose, it should have some curvature and flow. If it doesn't it's probably not a good pose to be studying for gesture, because we want movement. You were actually seeing the lines pretty well, it just looked like you lost confidence after those first couple. Drawing the nice smooth lines means you're "feeling it".
I'm certainly no expert, but LOA and figure drawing are something I've dedicated some time to. As Stan says in the video: there's no one right way to do these. Sometimes your line of action may differ from mine. Just keep practicing and try not to overthink. Those lines will come naturally with time.
I was just about to upload my session for today when I saw this. I'll take a moment to highlight the line of action from each pose before I put it up. Note that the arms, legs, and other twists and turns may have their own, separate, line of action too. I'm just noting the primary one in these drawings.
Here's a good article from the LOA site on finding the lines.
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Here's my session from today. I did two 20 minute sessions. Some of the poses today were super hard and I felt like it was a terrible session. Looking now it wasn't quite as bad as I thought. Not the best, but I've had worse too.
To help @Susan-Marks, and anyone else who's curious, I've highlighted my main line of action in blue and used red if there was a secondary one that felt really strong. With a shorter time limit these would be my main targets to draw. It's worth mentioning that these are all either C, S, or I lines, like Stan mentions in the videos. Hope that helps!
The red line on the first set is a correction. That should be sharp, not flowing curves. I used the bright red teacher ink to mark myself off for that one.
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@SketchyArtish oooh good idea
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Watched the next section of the video, got into 2 minute drawings. I think I'm worse at 2 min. than 30-second! I need to practice the longer drawings more before I dare show any pictures. My proportions end up all wrong somehow.
I'm going away for a 3 day weekend, so I won't post anything other than this until later next week, but I hope to see all the progress the rest of you are making!
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Hi all, sorry I wasn't able to join as planned. It's been a tough week and my productivity has been greatly affected. I hope to get back on track soon. All the best.
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I have been bad at posting pics but reasonable good at making time to practice
that's the main thing!
Last night I did something different and tried charcoal instead of pencil. And i also sketched from some of my previous gesture drawings instead of photos. That made me really think about the drawing and the flow. I think it was a good thing to do. Will go back and forth between using my own drawings as reference and photos. I felt like I forgot about the detail of what I was drawing and got more into the gestures, the linework, the drawing which was awesome. I haven't watched the third video yet and have a busy weekend shaping up but hopefully I can watch at least part of the next video and keep up some practice. I did knock the practice back to about 20 minutes though as I was doing an hour and my house and life are falling apart lol, not to mention I wasn't sketching in my sketchbook so much. It's such a balance isn;t it?! -
@SketchyArtish your words and poses with the LOA marked out are so helpful. I suspect that in most of those I would not have seen that line. I’m definitely getting lost in the details. I like the style of you figures in that the very big muscle shape is seen, but not in any anatomical detail. Which I do intellectually know is exactly the point.
I was watching the last set of poses in the class before the critique and I felt like my 2 minute poses are even more off. I think I might focus on shorter poses.
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@Coley sometimes I feel like the balance that real life demands requires some of the poses were drawing!
I think your idea of drawing again from your previous drawings sounds brilliant. I’m going to give it a try. I may even try drawing from @SketchyArtish’s drawings. -
I was scrolling through my phone for something else and spotted some older drawings from about 6 months ago. Figured I'd toss these up for comparison. The improvements are from about 30-60 minutes of short gestures a week tops. The flow and proportions are really coming more "naturally" for me now. It's nice to be able to actually see the difference limited practice has made.
I'm finishing up the final video now. This was a good idea to run through the class together @Susan-Marks !
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@SketchyArtish I agree your gestures are improving! More flowing now. I am also watching the last video. It's actually really good and could be watched earlier!
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@Coley @SketchyArtish --I've finished up the last video and I really enjoyed it. I can see that gesture is an interpretation-and 2 teachers see things a bit differently-which was helpful.
I did some copy over of SketchyArtish's previous set of drawings. That helped me loosen up and feel with my fingers how the shapes could be much smoother. Then I tried some of my own.
I really felt seen when Marshall Vandruff spoke about the "itchy/sketchy" lines. In this set I helped myself out with a brush with some streamline. These are 60 second poses, and I used the first 10-15 to "look."@SketchyArtish'-I was so pleased to see your earlier drawings and how progress can be made. For this 6 months, really doesn't seem long. Like they say, regular practice...
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@Susan-Marks
Are any of you finding direct ways to take what you're learning in this course and applying it to your work?I looked back at my original thoughts-and its now clear to me that my stories don't have a lot of big gestures in them. They have expressions-and I may tackle that next. I know some of the figure pose sites we've been using also have sections on expression.
I've really enjoyed learning with you!
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@Susan-Marks You're really starting to see those long flowing lines in the poses. Nice ones! The proportions are just a matter of time and practice (Marshal talks about that in the video).
As for the work, Proko's videos have improved my ability to draw poses a lot. It's allowed me to add action to characters (even those quick warm up ones from the Virtual Studio thread), which really helps bring a character to life IMO. One of these days I will buy that full course, but there's a ton of great info for free on his website. I can't recommend the "bean" and "mannequin" videos enough for anyone looking to build poses from imagination.
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I was able to get back at it this morning before work, but didn't take pictures of what I did. One thing I noticed is that I'm drawing the legs on every single gesture drawing waaay too short. Def need to keep this in mind from the beginning of a drawing - make the line of action long enough to actually have legs in proportion to the rest of the body!
I've still got the critique video to watch, and a ton more practice to do. Good to go through this class with others as it's helped with accountability a great deal!
