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akarudsan — 1 minutes practice sketches
#charcoal #girl #traditional #traditionalart
Published: 2018-05-18 22:15:45 +0000 UTC; Views: 506; Favourites: 17; Downloads: 1
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As a part on how to get better you really need to practice a lot and not only complete drawings but lots and lots of short ones to capture gesture and essence of the subject or object. These are just examples of what I’m doing lately.Related content
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To draw gesture one must study gesture drawing, which has nothing to do with shape and volume; these address the second and third dimension, which comes later with construction and detail. Gesture drawing address the first dimension, which is the abstraction of vector and generally expressed as a line representing force. The primary element of gesture drawing is the line of action (LOA). That is what you should be working with, not closed outlines. Here there are no lines of action representing force; there are only lines representing edges.
In order to understand the abstract nature of gesture one must separate the action (abstract- force) from the actor (concrete - tangible thing).
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Actually, you're not right in this case. Look closely and you'll see underlying lines of action. I've added lines of edges later because I still had time to add it. Same with 2 minutes, I had time to start defining some volume, not that it's good but it's because I had time left. As for the pure gesture I'm not exactly sure what it should fully look like because I haven't seen any good references yet for it. I'm awaiting for book so will study it in more details once it comes.
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I take your word for that (the gesture lines). Often the posts don't show the original lines and colors as they appear in the originals. So, in that I'm glad, because the issue is not one of misconception, but of "how-to". And this is exactly the problem one encounters when studying gesture - like the foundation of a house, it disappears under the construction. LOL.
Here are some thoughts for what they may be worth. I hope they will be helpful.
The challenge, then, is not to discover the first dimension. You have done it. Good. The challenge is to develop from that conception a working method. For some that means lyrical lines, as gesture is visually represented as rhythmic line and line patterns. And here the lines represent action, not actor, so care must be taken to keep the emphasis on rhythm, so it doesn't prematurely turn into outline and detail. In step 1 ( 1-gesture, 2-volume, 3-detail) one works with the conscious intention to capture an expression of the whole action, instead of representing any of the parts. In this way the gesture can be thought of as a hologram, which is the blueprint for the pose.
1) Gesture=rhythm, where rhythm is the "glue" that unites all the parts. 2) gesture drawing emphasizes the whole (the glue) over parts; 3) the function of gesture is to act as a placeholder to capture and fix the emotional expression of the pose. In this way it can be thought of as a hologram.
Any way of marking the paper that captures the whole, that serves as a placeholder, blueprint, or matrix for subsequent construction, will serve well as method of gesture drawing. Several methods are commonly used, such as the scribble line, core drawing, and massing. Other ways are generally variations and combinations of them.
Separating gesture from things, spirit from matter, is the most fundamental and subtle of skills. One may have to progress quite far before realizing the need to return to the beginning to address it. Indeed, one may have to return, repeatedly, throughout his career, to get to the heart of it - if that is even possible.
Vilppu is "Mr. Gesture" and demonstrates all three of the drawing approaches mentioned above. Mattesi understands it well - his model of "force and structure" may appeal to you. It is simply a restatement of Hogarth's "dynamic" drawing. And of course, the best verbal explanations come via Nicholaides, who, instead of showing a method, encourages self-discovery through proper exercise.
I'll leave you to it.
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In approaching gesture, it also helps to understand how fundamental differences in what sensory mode one prefers (visual v. kinesthetic) affect the approach to gesture. The block-in method of drawing favored by many painters (what Loomis calls "visual survey") divides the canvas using measurements of two dimensions (length and width). It's concerned with shapes and proportions. This is primarily a visual approach well suited to accurately copying the model, as is done in the academic traditions. It's all on the outside. By contrast, the drawing method of animators and cartoonists, which comes to us directly from great masters of the renaissance (the Florentine School) starts with "feeling" the flow. One resonates with the model , feels the pose as if he were holding it himself, then reproduces it based primarily on how that feels ("study the model, don't copy the model") ; so, it's mostly on the inside when drawing from the model, and entirely on the inside when drawing from imagination. (Note that the visual method doesn't apply to drawing from imagination.)
Investigating this helped me to get out of my own way, so to speak.
Okay - I'll shut up, now. 
Good examples of kinesthetic gesture drawing in Vilppu's Drawing Manual, available online. kupdf.com/download/the-vilppu-…
Here is a page from it showing one kind of gesture drawing www.google.com/search?q=vilppu… :
See Sheldon's book, too, (See It, Trace It, Feel It, Draw It) the examples around page 18 issuu-download.tiny-tools.com/…
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Thank you very much for all these links to books and visuals! I've downloaded them and will be familiarizing more myself on this subject. One thing, though, about gesture is that it's quite subjective. As you said it yourself, for some it's one thing for others it's another. The key is to transfer the energy of the drawing but to achieve what exactly? If just that, meaning just to lay in energy, then there are gazillion ways of looking at that and it will vary from person to person because in the end it's just an abstraction or an idea what we try to put in on paper. The abstraction can be done in one line or a thousand different lines and yet will achieve the same result. The whole drawing is an abstraction of what we see as we're not even trying to copy all the intricacies of nature, plus our eyes are quite deceiving and fool us all the time. Well, if you think further, the whole world as we see is an abstraction constructed by our brains of what we see and what we feel and as I type this I cannot possibly correctly outline all the thought processes that are going on in my head to explain myself. In other words, as I said earlier, everything is so subjective and then the key question is do you really need to do pure gesture drawings or it's done for studying purposes to train yourself to feel the drawing and to more or less try to correctly create the atmosphere in your drawing of what you're trying to "feel" (but it won't be exactly the same for other people as they look at your drawing, they will feel different things all the time). I personally like the idea of getting better and better obviously, hence, I'll be studying it a lot and appreciate the leads to how to get better at it. As we get better we do a lot more things in our heads before laying them in onto paper. As an example, when I started drawing a few years ago I couldn't "feel" the tension lines especially in figure drawing (which do show the energy of the drawing), now I can and when I sketch I can "feel" if I'm on a right track or not by just following the tension lines as I put them on, it's like a wave to me with some sharp abrupt corners and some gradual flows and waves do overlap with smaller or bigger waves. So to me it's a gesture but I don't put it on as pure waves all the way. I put bigger waves lightly, then smaller waves on top of them to feel the dynamic, then I check for proportions to make sure that I don't get the wrong thing and adjust my waves. But, if you compare it to Vilppu's waves, it's not the same, so that's why earlier in our discussion I said that I want to read more on this subject and was waiting on a book. This is so that I can understand more ways of representing the same thing and see what works for me the most. I've seen video tutorials by Vilppu and others and got that idea of waves but, man, it doesn't click yet in my brain on how to make it easier for ME specifically to do it. Makes sense? So, I'll study more and I'm sure it will click as usually anything in my life
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Yes. There is no need to copy anyone's way of capturing gesture. Given the principles, one figures out his own way. And, yes, there is little point to aiming at "pure" gesture except to promote general drawing ability; because, before we can effectively identify and combine components, we must learn to isolate and separate them. The end goal is to combine them, instantly, just as beginners do, but with effectiveness of the master. It's a process.
Vilppu explains two main categories or types of gesture drawing. He calls them the A type and the B type. The A type is vectors, waves, lines of force. This is exemplified in the sketches of Daumier. The B type emphasizes structure over force and is exemplified by the sketches of Rubens. So, here we have the main components of gesture - force and structure - with emphasis at the extremes. And there are various other proportions between them, ways of drawing based on varying the proportions.
One thing to keep sight of is that the idea of gesture drawing is to capture an expression of the whole, instantly. It is drawing at the speed of thought. Or, ability to capture the whole with but a glance. You look, see, and feel. Once you feel the pose, you need not look back to check where the feet go, or which way the head tilts, etc. You know, because you are holding the pose, yourself, as a feeling in your body.
Okay - I swear, I will let you go back to work and leave you to the joy (and frustration) of figuring it out for yourself, as must we all. My journals are full of things you might enjoy, like experiments drawing purely by afterimage. So, if you ever want to talk about odd stuff, or get theoretical, or need help finding references, I'm always happy to engage.
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I just received two packs of 12-pack General's 6B charcoal pencils 
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Have fun. (You must burn through those fast.)
I do digital, now, on a Cintiq. Very convenient. Work big, no setting up, no cleaning up, no mess. haha. When I did traditional media, which I stopped three years ago, I used either compressed hunks or vine for the main drawing, then hard charcoal pencils or conti for the detail. Conti is very nice, but only on good paper. On newsprint it cuts through the paper using the point, and broad strokes on the side don't mark well. But on good paper, it's beautiful.
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I've tried to draw on iPad Pro using Procreate and didn't like the feeling of it yet....I like to smudge a lot when I draw using charcoal (or graphite) with my finger and I'm kinda losing that part with digital.
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Me too - like to smudge - to precipitate form from a fog, or as the Italian's called it, the Sfumato (the smoke).
I spent all of 2016 getting used to drawing (and then painting) with a pen tablet ( sol-caninus.deviantart.com/gal… ) Very difficult. Draw on tablet while look at monitor. And all is done in a very small patch of space (like 2x3, or something rediculous like that.) So, all strokes are with fingers and wrist, instead of elbow and shoulder (though, in time, one learns to swing from shoulder even for small strokes). I thought it would ruin my ability to draw. haha. But it didn't, and I finally got the hang of it. Still, I like the Display Pad (Cintiq) better, because it helps when you can see your hand as you draw. More natural.
With airbrush and various kinds of smudge tools, one can work digitally in ways that are the same or very close to the traditional ways.
Never tried iPad Pro or Procreate. But after using Cintiq 27 QHD (Touch) with Clip Studio Paint, everything else is in the rearview mirror, except charcoal and paper! LOL. I miss it, but not enough to give up digital and go back. Digital is so damned convenient. My output and skill skyrocketed once I got into it, because it facilitated practice. It's ready to go when i am. But one has to become a tech head, because there is rarely a stretch of time without having to troubleshoot a computer issue.
I encourage you to explore digital, but don't give up traditional. I really haven't given it up, either. I just don't rely on it as I used to. But still play with it time to time. And I always have pencil and paper handy for doodling, ideas, etc. Hell - I still have an industrial drawing board, instead of a dining table, set up in my dining room. Haha. You can see both studios here sol-caninus.deviantart.com/gal…
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