Forum posts by Katina

Dfish,

I think that's the word I was looking for--a mental representation for what I'm trying to transpose onto the page. Great analogy to the bedroom :D.

My revised plan, based on your insight, is to practice figures without a time limit, but I'm going to try not to get caught too much in the details of the drawing and instead focus on proper proportions, anatomy, etc of the gesture.

Thank you so much for the feedback! Cheers,

Katina

Hey guys,

I've been creating art on and off for about the past year and a half, but just started to become more serious about it this past month or so. I've really wanted to hone in on the human form and decided to undertake a gesture drawing study, which has been fun--and painful!--thus far. However, the biggest roadblock for me is how I transpose an image into my sketchbook. Most of the time, I can't visualize how the figure is going to look down in pencil on my sketchpad; sometimes when I make a particularly accurate rendering of the head of some other key body part, I'm able to briefly visualize the rest of the body and try to frantically put it down while it's still fresh in my mind. Most of the time though, I'm left staring at the page willing the figure to magically appear before my eyes so I can put down the lines!

I think part of the problem is that I'm glancing back and forth between the model and the page too often so I don't have time to think about where to place my next lines in order to keep proportion, etc. It's just really frustrating because sometimes I end up with a good-looking sketch and the other half of my sketches make no sense at all.

Does anyone else have this problem? Any tips for 'visualization' as I draw? Please and thank you!!