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We are going to do some gesture drawings here. I
want to talk a minute about some of the ideas to keep in mind when your doing these quick
holistic, summary gesture drawings. Think of our job here is to get all over on the
page as quickly as possible, and so therefore we are not going to worry too much about structure
and not about detail at all. Okay so let's do a two minute gesture. Shirley - thank you.
So I'm finding my way through the total length - that's very important. Try to get through
the whole thing in the first moment. Don't linger in anyone place too long. Now all I'm
really doing is creating a place for the elements of her figure to go rather than actually drawing
them. So that's my first step. I like to talk about this as though you are finding a pathway,
you know, a place for everything. So there's very loose , undefined layout if you will.
Now I have an idea, okay here is where my rib cage can go, here's where my pelvis can
go. Pull this down through the knee down to this weight bearing foot, focusing on its
relationship to her head of course so she has balance. I'm trying to employ long fluid
marks rather than short broken ones. And the other concept that we talk about all the time
in gesture is this idea of exaggeration. So I am actively trying to amplify or exaggerate
slightly the dynamic of the pose. That's an effort to keep it loose and free and natural.
Our tendency I suppose is to the opposite actually so that's why we really want to keep
it dynamic if you will. She drops her shoulder for instance down this way. I drop it lower. I see her
hip rise. I want to get it rise even higher. I find the termination and then hook back,
find your way back. And always looking for the rhythm and the flow.
What that general overview does is it gives us the place, places where we'll draw the elements of her figure
and everything is very light and line weight is very rhythmic and quick. The mark making
is continuous, never broken, and the goal is a nice smooth fluid feeling to the drawing.
I'm not worried about outside contours. I'm more interested in finding the thrust direction,
the direction of things, the length if you will.