Hi!
It's nice to see that your studies include more than just one minute poses. It's good to give yourself a little more time to explore what is actually happening within the pose. I also like the class setting on the site for that. I would agree with the other advice given about contour lines. I found it hard to get away from just focusing on the contour as well. A professor of mine put it in these terms, think about how hard it is to copy a curve, a line or a perfect circle. It's really unfair to yourself to put that expectation on your every mark. To make it "match" what you see perfectly. The point of a gesture is to communicate the idea of a pose to yourself or to a viewer not to copy a pictuer perfectly. I'd say a way to get away from just the contour of the figure is to focus on the large shapes of the poses and the line of action in the pose. Other things to note are the rhythyms of the body. Particularly where the model's body stretches or squashes, and where the curves and straight lines are throughout the pose. I hope that makes sense and is helpful to you! Good luck with you practice.
Hi ya!
These are great! You've got a solid line of action for each pose and I'm getting a very clear idea of what each model is doing. I can see that you are thinking about the rhythms of the body by showing the stretch and pinch on your poses, as well as guidelines showing the roundness of the figure in space. Gestures for me have started to be my time to not worry about nailing down every single thing in the pose. Short gestures are for communicating the idea of the pose, and if your proportions are off or if you can't "finish" the figure then so be it. Longer drawings and studies help you work out those details. Of course the more you practice the more information you see and can share with the viewer in a shorter amount of time. After coming to this realization I really love gesture drawing and I really enjoyed these. Thank you for sharing them.
