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Gesture Drawing:
I touched on the importance of gesture drawing in the last sketching tutorial I posted. A quick recap:
The most important thing to making art is the realization that a finished piece is the product of hundreds of studies, practices, or no-so-finished pieces. A major part of "learning to draw" is learning to sketch. If you go to a fine art school, you'll spend your first year "life drawing" (drawing from a model) or "still life" (drawing from a set up scene, like a fruit bowl. How droll.)
It's boring and it's tedious, but it has to be done. You can't do calculus without knowing algebra!
Anyone can tell you "build the figure using cubes, spheres, and cylinders," but building robots like that completely loose the feel of the "organic" creature--something made of fluid lines, curves, thicks and thins, and most important: movement. Movement becomes Story, and Story becomes a great work of art.
Gesture sketches are what art students learn to do to learn to create fluid characters. Its a sketch of a complicated pose done by a model, and the student has 10-25 seconds to capture that pose on paper. What you get when you start out is scribbles and the art equivalent of gibberish. After time, you develop an "economy of lines," the ability to capture movement, weight and physical feel in a few strokes. It takes time, but so does everything worth having.
WHY BOTHER?
It builds a foundation and natural understanding for form, substance and weight your subconscious remembers.
The next time you go to draw, your body will react with natural ease.
Driving a car becomes second nature, and so will the human (or animal) form if you practice enough.
HOW TO DO IT:
You don't need a professional model. All you need is a window. Sketch people walking by, or go to the zoo and sketch animals. The attached sheet of dog gesture drawings was done at a dog park in town. Really, there is no limit to where you can find people or animals to put to paper.
Photos are an alright alternative if you simply cannot make it outside, or the weather does not permit, or you know no one who is willing to let you sketch them, or every pub, library, street, coffee shop and restaurant has had every living creature but you killed off by some alien virus.
The problem with photos: it is a static image, harder to see and feel the movement of the subject, your eye perceives it differently than real life (specially on a monitor screen) AND lastly, you have to rely on yourself to say "time is up," because your subject will sit there obligingly for an eternity.
Time yourself with a clock with a second hand, or ask a friend to sit in with you and take turns sketching and timing. If you can work well with outside influences going on, commercials are usually 30 seconds. Why not spend the time between shows doing a set of gesture drawings of people outside, or your cat sleeping, or your friend posing?
The key notes to gesture sketching are: Work Evenly, Quickly, And Fluidly.
Work Evenly means you only have a few seconds to get the entire pose down. The goal is to get the figure on paper, not linger and make the arm look perfect.
Working quickly does not imply frantically or with stress. In the beginning, you have to let yourself be willing to just scribble on paper. Tell yourself it's not going to be a work of art for a gallery--its practice, no one but you is going to see it! Eventually, you'll have yourself trained that you can just focus on the pose and get what you can on paper in the 15-45 seconds you've given yourself.
WHY SO SHORT OF TIME?
"My drawing is looking great, but then I run out of time! I'll just give myself an extra minuet..." The reason for gesture drawings is not to make a great picture. It's to exercise your brain and hand together to get the right lines on paper. You didn't get the whole form in 20 seconds? Oh well, time to try again.
Work Fluidly: This comes down to materials. You want to use something that is easy to move quickly around the paper, and doesn't smudge too easily. Most paint is hard to gesture sketch with because it takes time to dry and re wet the brush--stay away from paint for this.
I recommend an ink pen that flows easily, a Sharpie, or charcoal if you are using large paper. Experiment until you find something that works well for you!
The art of gesture drawing is something that does not come easily. It does take time, and practice, but it is something you can improve upon quickly and the results will show it if you apply the little bit of effort. Try to gesture sketch 3-4 times a week for 15 minuets, at least, or at most, 5 days a week. Like most things, your brains needs breaks in between sessions to absorb the concepts and incorporate them.
VERY IMPORTANT: Let yourself go from the mindset that every time your pencil touches paper it must be better than the last time! It will only make you tense. Progress comes in small steps--it's not a smooth slope.
Gesture drawing is also fun. It's a little personal challenge to create a finished sketch in a short period of time.
This is a sheet of gesture drawings of dogs done while sitting at a local dog park ( a fenced in area where dogs can run off leash.)
Each sketch took about 20-40 seconds, and is in either Sharpie or Mircon pens.
It is good to sketch a lot of kinds of people and animals. You can take what you learn and apply it other places. A broad base of knowledge will win over specialization.
Now, if any one's managed to read through all that and get to this, I'd love to see some other people's gesture drawings! :]
I have a thread in the Tutorial forum for anyone interested in sharing their gesture drawings:
http://www.furaffinityforums.net/sh.....d.php?tid=5651
Cheers,
-Blotch
I touched on the importance of gesture drawing in the last sketching tutorial I posted. A quick recap:
The most important thing to making art is the realization that a finished piece is the product of hundreds of studies, practices, or no-so-finished pieces. A major part of "learning to draw" is learning to sketch. If you go to a fine art school, you'll spend your first year "life drawing" (drawing from a model) or "still life" (drawing from a set up scene, like a fruit bowl. How droll.)
It's boring and it's tedious, but it has to be done. You can't do calculus without knowing algebra!
Anyone can tell you "build the figure using cubes, spheres, and cylinders," but building robots like that completely loose the feel of the "organic" creature--something made of fluid lines, curves, thicks and thins, and most important: movement. Movement becomes Story, and Story becomes a great work of art.
Gesture sketches are what art students learn to do to learn to create fluid characters. Its a sketch of a complicated pose done by a model, and the student has 10-25 seconds to capture that pose on paper. What you get when you start out is scribbles and the art equivalent of gibberish. After time, you develop an "economy of lines," the ability to capture movement, weight and physical feel in a few strokes. It takes time, but so does everything worth having.
WHY BOTHER?
It builds a foundation and natural understanding for form, substance and weight your subconscious remembers.
The next time you go to draw, your body will react with natural ease.
Driving a car becomes second nature, and so will the human (or animal) form if you practice enough.
HOW TO DO IT:
You don't need a professional model. All you need is a window. Sketch people walking by, or go to the zoo and sketch animals. The attached sheet of dog gesture drawings was done at a dog park in town. Really, there is no limit to where you can find people or animals to put to paper.
Photos are an alright alternative if you simply cannot make it outside, or the weather does not permit, or you know no one who is willing to let you sketch them, or every pub, library, street, coffee shop and restaurant has had every living creature but you killed off by some alien virus.
The problem with photos: it is a static image, harder to see and feel the movement of the subject, your eye perceives it differently than real life (specially on a monitor screen) AND lastly, you have to rely on yourself to say "time is up," because your subject will sit there obligingly for an eternity.
Time yourself with a clock with a second hand, or ask a friend to sit in with you and take turns sketching and timing. If you can work well with outside influences going on, commercials are usually 30 seconds. Why not spend the time between shows doing a set of gesture drawings of people outside, or your cat sleeping, or your friend posing?
The key notes to gesture sketching are: Work Evenly, Quickly, And Fluidly.
Work Evenly means you only have a few seconds to get the entire pose down. The goal is to get the figure on paper, not linger and make the arm look perfect.
Working quickly does not imply frantically or with stress. In the beginning, you have to let yourself be willing to just scribble on paper. Tell yourself it's not going to be a work of art for a gallery--its practice, no one but you is going to see it! Eventually, you'll have yourself trained that you can just focus on the pose and get what you can on paper in the 15-45 seconds you've given yourself.
WHY SO SHORT OF TIME?
"My drawing is looking great, but then I run out of time! I'll just give myself an extra minuet..." The reason for gesture drawings is not to make a great picture. It's to exercise your brain and hand together to get the right lines on paper. You didn't get the whole form in 20 seconds? Oh well, time to try again.
Work Fluidly: This comes down to materials. You want to use something that is easy to move quickly around the paper, and doesn't smudge too easily. Most paint is hard to gesture sketch with because it takes time to dry and re wet the brush--stay away from paint for this.
I recommend an ink pen that flows easily, a Sharpie, or charcoal if you are using large paper. Experiment until you find something that works well for you!
The art of gesture drawing is something that does not come easily. It does take time, and practice, but it is something you can improve upon quickly and the results will show it if you apply the little bit of effort. Try to gesture sketch 3-4 times a week for 15 minuets, at least, or at most, 5 days a week. Like most things, your brains needs breaks in between sessions to absorb the concepts and incorporate them.
VERY IMPORTANT: Let yourself go from the mindset that every time your pencil touches paper it must be better than the last time! It will only make you tense. Progress comes in small steps--it's not a smooth slope.
Gesture drawing is also fun. It's a little personal challenge to create a finished sketch in a short period of time.
This is a sheet of gesture drawings of dogs done while sitting at a local dog park ( a fenced in area where dogs can run off leash.)
Each sketch took about 20-40 seconds, and is in either Sharpie or Mircon pens.
It is good to sketch a lot of kinds of people and animals. You can take what you learn and apply it other places. A broad base of knowledge will win over specialization.
Now, if any one's managed to read through all that and get to this, I'd love to see some other people's gesture drawings! :]
I have a thread in the Tutorial forum for anyone interested in sharing their gesture drawings:
http://www.furaffinityforums.net/sh.....d.php?tid=5651
Cheers,
-Blotch
Category Artwork (Traditional) / All
Species Dog (Other)
Size 750 x 900px
File Size 281.7 kB
Try lots of different things. It also depends on what your sketching with. If your using charcoal, its best to work large, where as a pen, you can draw smallish.
You'll find something you feel comfortable. :]
The Micron sketches (thin lines) are roughly 3x4 inches, and the Sharpie (thicker lines) are 5x4ish on this sheet for a little comparison.
You'll find something you feel comfortable. :]
The Micron sketches (thin lines) are roughly 3x4 inches, and the Sharpie (thicker lines) are 5x4ish on this sheet for a little comparison.
Wow, that's something. Time to get a sketching pen and start going outside!.. as soon as the winds and raining stops... >.>''
These are some professional tutorials, Blotch. But.. does a gesture drawing requires understaning of basic anatomy and proportions? Or am I sadly wrong about that? I think I'm wrong.
These are some professional tutorials, Blotch. But.. does a gesture drawing requires understaning of basic anatomy and proportions? Or am I sadly wrong about that? I think I'm wrong.
Gesture drawing is one of many tools to learn anatomy and proportions. It helps you get a tangible feel for an object or figure. It encourages you to get up and touch things, and really understand how joints, muscles and bones fit together.
It's a method like sculpting clay, only with lines on paper.
It's a method like sculpting clay, only with lines on paper.
Oh, I never said it was a waste of time. Doing both is effective.
Gesture drawing is a method that most people never attempt, and get frustrated and tense trying to sketch by building cubes, cylindars and spheres.
It's an alternative but also works in tandem, much like most right brain/left brain exercises.
Gesture drawing is a method that most people never attempt, and get frustrated and tense trying to sketch by building cubes, cylindars and spheres.
It's an alternative but also works in tandem, much like most right brain/left brain exercises.
Studying anatomy teaches you how to build and draw accurately proportioned manequins with fine detail, but without the spark of life.
Practicing quick sketches teaches you how to express deeper emotions and intentions with movements, guestures, and finesse but the proportions aren't always accurate to the nth degree.
Really, it helps to learn both, but there's no rule that says you need to learn one before the other, or learn them seperately at all; its just a different focus of study.
Practicing quick sketches teaches you how to express deeper emotions and intentions with movements, guestures, and finesse but the proportions aren't always accurate to the nth degree.
Really, it helps to learn both, but there's no rule that says you need to learn one before the other, or learn them seperately at all; its just a different focus of study.
I've never done this kind of thing with art! ^^; That's probably why my anatomy, proportions, and limb attachments suck. :p
Anyone got any tips for an artist that takes too much time on their drawings? Cause I feel like I've developed a nice tendancy to shade and mix colors on drawings but can't get the body and pose right. :/
I'm totally going to try this gesture stuff! Messed with a Micron pen for the first time on a napkins at Arby's a few days ago and dang, those lines are so fine! Gotta get me one of those...
Thanks again Blotch, just another fur inspired by your art.
Anyone got any tips for an artist that takes too much time on their drawings? Cause I feel like I've developed a nice tendancy to shade and mix colors on drawings but can't get the body and pose right. :/
I'm totally going to try this gesture stuff! Messed with a Micron pen for the first time on a napkins at Arby's a few days ago and dang, those lines are so fine! Gotta get me one of those...
Thanks again Blotch, just another fur inspired by your art.
I'd suggest, tip-wise, that you should look up refs (depending on what you're drawing) to find a good feel on anatomy. If you're having trouble with animals in specific, maybe you should take your sketchpad and find some animals in real life to referrence from. If, and only if, you can't seem to do that then I'd turn back to referrences-pictures. Maybe you have a friend who can draw that's willing to give tips. Tutorials can help too. Maybe even studying the subject you're having issues on can help. If I see a picture I know I can't do, I try to memorize it so later when I need help with something, it's stored in my head. I learned from referrencing pictures and from being around animals in day to day life.
I hope that wasn't just a ramble, and you understood it. ^^'
I hope that wasn't just a ramble, and you understood it. ^^'
Lol, no you're good. Made sense to me. But it's not what I'm looking for. ^^;
I feel like I was just rambling at the time and fishing for inspiration to practice, preactice practice...practice more.
As for referances, I always watch real life things; that way I can watch them move and stuff. Picture don't work for me. -_-; But they help with inspiration and sometimes a color/style change.
Thanks anyways. :3
I feel like I was just rambling at the time and fishing for inspiration to practice, preactice practice...practice more.
As for referances, I always watch real life things; that way I can watch them move and stuff. Picture don't work for me. -_-; But they help with inspiration and sometimes a color/style change.
Thanks anyways. :3
Wow, awesome tips is all I can say. I'm very interested in continuing art as a major, and I think this could really help me. I've never tried it, except for on my cat when I was little. I've thought about it, but I usually draw them when they're sleeping so they stay in that position for a while. Maybe a quicker sketch would work better. I really appriciate the help. You have some very good points in there (Haha, yeah, I read the whole thing.) If I can I'll post some of my own later and link you to them. Tips would be helpful. :)
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