Gesture : draw what you feel and not what you see ?

Hello!

I've tried to do a bit of gesture everyday since a few days, after seeing a video by Proko.

In this video, he said to not draw the contour of the figure, but to draw the general movement and to "draw what you feel and not what you see".

And I don't get it...

Like when he is showing examples or when I see examples from other artists, I just see them drawing flowey lines and exagerating the poses, but for me they are still drawing the contours, so I don't know what they mean, and my gesture drawings are just the contours as well...

Can someone help me understand this ?

Hi!

What they mean by contour lines is the exact outline of the "end result" - like on a photo or a finished drawing, filled with detail. But gestural lines (or shapes) are meant to describe that in a simplified, expressive manner, just enough information to convey the pose, and general proportions. Where there might be a slight bump on the actual anatomy, if it's not an important part of the pose, it's omitted in the gesture to have less distractions from the bigger statement and get that working first.

"Drawing what you feel" is what I started to understand only after quite a bit of practice. It's an intuition thing that tells me if my drawing is "working" or not. If the gesture works, I can almost "feel" the energy of the pose or shapes, and it helps tremendously to guide my drawings.

Hope it helps, good luck!

Hi,

Thank you so much for your answer, it makes more sense now !

And it reassures me that it takes a bit of time to fully get it, I'll keep practicing, while keeping that in mind.

Thank you again !

Hello,

Reinar is very well spoken and I love the way they phrased things. I love gestural drawing so I just want to gush about it a bit:

-Gestural drawing is excellent for learning more control over anatomy in an imaginitive way. As you practice, you will see the way various marks changes the overall tone of the figure. So drawing without references but finding a particular unique expression will eventually get more intuitive (at least it did for me).

-Kind of on the same note, it is such a good tool for finding your style, and noticing the way your hand works, noticing what you choose and don't choose to show in your gestural marks. It's another great tool as an artist for learning more about what you tend to gravitate towards while you create.

-I personally love the romantic and emotional quality that tends to show up in gestural drawing, and I think this is because the artist shines through a lot in this technique. Which is my jam!

Best of luck! :)