I feel like I have the consistent problem of drawing the OUTLINE and not the GESTURE, ...or essence of movement. But if I do just lines they turn out very stickfigure-y. I feel like im so bad at exaggerating angles jussst right. I also have a proportion issue but I feel like that will improve with practice. Thank you!
Hm, it may just be that you're too fast! like judging by your line quality and their confidence, it only makes sense not to "just" draw a line of action, because you have time to draw an entire dang figure!
I feel like the only way you can force a line of action is by making it so you literally only have time to draw a single line before moving on to the next picture.
thanks for the reply. So you are suggesting something along the lines of limiting myself to 15 second gesture drawings? I can try that but I noticed they come out as stick figures. I guess my biggest issue is successfully showing fluidity in the gesture.
If you don't like the way they come out currently, maybe what you could do is draw on top of photographs to figure out which lines you'd LIKE to capture.
first of all why do you want specifically 30 sec gestures? The faster you go - the harder it gets. Challenging yourself can be beneficial, but not always... It helps with finding shortcuts on building volumes, but you need to know and understand basic proportions for that. Check for example this guy gesture routine: [url=][/url]
He starts with 2 min gestures, and gradually going faster and faster. It's good cause your brain need some time to warm up, before you can go really fast. Also it is worth mentioning that gestures are not supposed to be correct or clean. It is just a fast way to capture main pose and volumes. I'd recommend not to be obsessed with clean lines, maybe try different style like dirty scribbling. As long as your scribbles gives you a clear idea of pose and balance - it is a success.
I'm doing an online figure-drawing course and it emphasized to start off with gestures (30 sec, 1 min, 2 min) for 1-2 hours daily to really train your brain to capture movement and fluidity in your lines because its harder to unlearn stiffness later on. Im supposed to do a variety of them; 30 sec for 30 min, 2 min for 30 min , etc etc but i tend to be perfectionistic with the longer ones so I cheated and just do 30 seconds to force my brain to just do the lines and not overthink. Im gonna flip to 2 min for now and try amping up the speed as the session goes by as you said. As for the YouTube link, sorry, but I dont think his gestures are good, it seems like he is just drawing the person completely accurately to the photo. The gesture content i've seen from other artists exaggerates the lines, the angles, to really show what movement the figure is doing.
I want to emphasize that in most methods, sub 1 minute drawings are just *exercises* to train your brain to look at images a certain way, with certain priorities. That means if what ends up on the page in 30 seconds is a single pen stroke, a stick figure, whatever - it really, really doesn't matter. Having an aesthetic result you can show to people is not the point. It's sort of like being in a martial arts class and being upset that the pushups at the start aren't a full kata. If you are meant to be focusing on learning the gesture/essence of motion, then do that, and don't worry if the visual notes you make about what you're studying and learning are legible later. You'll still be learning plenty. Something else you can focus on in sub 1 minute exercises is volume, limb relationships, etc.
Not to kill my own market here, but 1-2 hours of gestures per day sounds wildly excessive to me. I was always trained to use them as a warm up before slightly more sensible drawing windows, so like, 15 minutes max.
Hi! Those look really good! What I've learned so far is to focus on wrinkles in clothing, as that helps to get you drawing within the figure. Find the flow with a general curve or shape, then work aggressively within the figure. You can outline some of the figure towards the end if you have time, but definitely try focusing on the flow within the figure (I think of it like water). Hope this helps!
With 30sec you only have time to outline, make them stickfigury or maybe capture a single detail or so you find interesting, try longer formats ones your warmed up.
Personally I like the session classmode 30min as warmup!
The way it progresses from short to longer gestures loosen your drawing in the beguining and progresses into having time for more details and focus on proportions. Give it a try!
Doing longer studies helps you make your shorter gestures better too if you ask me.
My 30sec are kinda stickfigurey, 1min I try to block them out kind like in your linked gestures and the 5-10min I try to get down as much as possible using the previous stick/block technique and detailing onto that
