Forum posts by Meijin Bell

(I think you might've submitted this exact post twice by accident, there are two showing up)

Ironically, gesture is the least stressful art exercise for me. I've practiced it far more than any other discipline because most others were just too frustrating! I find it much more forgiving, though some days I can barely do 10 minutes, either.

I'd go back to the basics and do it with pencil or pen on paper. Alternately, maybe set your goal to just paint two or three strokes per 30-second figure. Simplify and focus on flowing through the figure. Be loose and imprecise; the stress will make you want to tense up more but that'll only defeat it. Just go for five minutes a day, and gradually increase that. You're not selling these or anything; they're just to get some energy out and develop yourself a little.

One way to make your current practice less time-consuming would be to draw the skeletal frame in a much lighter pencil or different color than the mucle overlay. Then you can at least save time not having to erase and get a better sense of how things fit. George Bridgeman's Constructive Anatomy book and technique might help you out a lot, too.

I suppose, if you want some quicker practice sessions, you could use the figure drawing pictures here and only draw them as skeletons. Even if you're not putting muscles back on them, that ought to make your bones/frames improve much more quickly.

• Meijin Bell edited this post on January 11, 2019 6:25pm. Reason: Spelling