One of the easiest ways to make your artwork stand out a lot more
is to make your work a lot more pleasing and enjoyable to look at,
and an easy way to do
that is to simply add a gesture to all of your drawings and paintings
in such a way that engages in captivates the viewer in a dance around your canvas.
Hey, everyone, my name is Ergo, Josh, and today I want to share with you
five of the most amazing artists, at least to me, that I have learned from
for how they incorporate gesture into their artwork.
So to save time, I'm going to skip the introductions for all these artists.
I'm going to mention their name.
It's going to show up at the bottom of the screen,
and it's also going to be linked in the description
so that you can quickly go, check them out and explore their artwork for yourself.
So first up, is going to be probably the most impactful to me on this list,
and it's going to be Lois
Van Baarle or Loish for short, as you probably already know her.
And so I've actually got a few canvases here in pure href with different artists,
and I'm going to share with you their artwork
and actually have a few books as well featuring
some artists that we can get a closer look at how they do their thing.
So for Loish, I want to focus on hair because she said in a recent interview
that she did with Proko that she just loves drawing hair,
and that's a big reason why she really is good at it.
So when we look at the hair here, my favorite thing that she does
or my favorite artworks are when she used to do a lot of detail
in the hair that she draws.
It's just insane the amount of strokes that she has.
But at the same time, it doesn't get way too cluttered.
But nowadays she does a lot more sheep heavy things.
And so you can see that here.
It's a lot less about all the details
and more about the overall shape, and she does it extremely well.
Like if I zoom in here, you can see there's not too many details,
but the shape is a very, very clear read
and you can get an instant read for how everything is flowing.
It's a matter of fact if I just take a quick little screenshot here
and then we can draw on it a little bit.
I can show you guys exactly what
I'm talking about, so you can look at this and see like immediately.
We have this main shape for her head here, and then it just kind of
arcs in and out like that.
And then if we look here again, this flows all in a very consistent pattern here.
That's really easy and pleasing on the eye to understand right there for her bun.
And then it goes over here to the part
for the center of her head and then it curves back around.
It's really, really appealing.
And looking at her work again, she does this in all kinds of things.
She does this in the landscapes.
If we look really, really closely, you can see
even in the marks that she has for the rocks and the grass,
that's a nice, streaky motion to her line work that really conveys
that gesture really well.
And even the
these chickens you can see, she follows the contour of the chicken's bodies.
And again, I'm going to show you a little bit of what I mean here.
It's probably I would think it would be probably really hard to draw chickens,
but all you have to do is keep making these strokes
in the shape of their bodies, and you really get a nice, appealing
drawing of chickens like,
And these flowy lines are just really, really awesome
to be able to get people to immerse themselves in your work.
And as a matter of fact, here I am, spend a little bit of extra time with her.
I have one of her art books here.
This page is really great because this is exactly like how I work.
A lot of the things she talks
about is stuff that I also struggle with and find helpful for me.
And she does all these really cool, and we make sure you can see it.
These really, really cool gestural thumbnails for her works.
And then when she finds one she like, she doesn't just like scrap it or anything.
She continues to add on to it and build up with, again,
only gestural lines all the information she needs.
And you can see the hair looks like a mess now.
But as we keep going, you can see she begins to add a ton
of different detail to this, and it's all just how she feels.
It's just what she feels like doing what makes sense to her in that moment.
And if you look at the final one, she has it
combined with all the jellyfish strokes and it just looks amazing.
And again, when she continues to go in for the finish,
she doesn't make this perfect line art.
That's she. She doesn't go back and redo everything.
All those strokes, those amazing gesture lines are there.
And so she just continues to add value in color above and under it
and paint over it and add gestural marks with paint to continue.
So it's really, really cool.
And it's why I love her artwork so much.
It's always really good to come back to her work
and get a reminder for how I should be approaching things
and if that doesn't do it for you.
I mean, she has 2.4 MILLIION followers on Instagram,
so I think it's safe to say that gesture is a really,
really important part of trying to figure out how to make people
really settle down and look at your work and absorb it the way you want them to.
So next up is going to be someone
quite similar, but another amazing woman and has captivating art.
Honestly, I recommend you look up J.A.W.
Cooper. She, I feel like.
She has made some serious progress on
how to what it's like to really be an artist
and how you should approach that and all the nuances there
and how to deal with ups and downs and all the art blocks and all that.
But her work is amazing.
She has an amazing control with her line work.
The line weights are incredible, like one of
I love it when she gets these prints done and she just has these nice golden edges
to things.
But even here, this photograph of one of her drawings
that she posed on Instagram just look at the way
the lines are just caressing all the forms so beautifully.
It's so interesting to look at, and I mean, you got to give her props.
She knows her skeletons. She knows her birds.
She knows her deer.
She knows her cats.
She knows her tigers, her horses.
She knows how to draw it all.
So that really, really helps her when it comes to these gestural lines.
There's a few key ways I want to point out that she uses these lines.
So if we take a look at this figure right here,
she uses these lines to indicate form really well.
So this line is here because she's indicating that there's an increase
in elevation here for the calf muscle that's coming back down.
She's showing you the side of the foot separate from the top of the foot.
She's showing you how the forms of the toes are wrapping around there.
She's showing you about how, what's more, in front
the the part of the forearm that's more towards you.
The part of the bicep in the upper arm that's more towards you.
She's showing you the forms as they wrap around her breast here and the face,
and she's doing that on a crazy high level here with this Jaguar or leopard.
It's really, really great.
And then she combines this with this use of kind of offset silhouette lines.
So she'll oftentimes continue these forms to
suggest depth where she just wraps around
the silhouette of the shape here.
And let me see if I can find a better example.
If I zoom in really close here, you can see she has these double lines,
and I think those are really, really cool and they really, really help
increase this further increase a sense of depth.
Her drawings
look like they're layered, even though they're all on the same surface.
And another thing she does is when it comes to fur,
and this is something I'm just going to straight up copy.
I recommend you do this for every one of the artists I talk about today anyway.
But she doesn't just go crazy, go ham with all the fur.
Look at these big areas that are blank.
She only adds fur when it's necessary to indicate former
help show death or muscles that she wants to point out.
So you can see this part right here is a tensed up muscle that she wants to convey,
and she uses those quick strokes to show that the form is changing
and kind of going up and over the muscles
that are there in the hindquarters there.
You can see this again with this horse here.
You can see those forms are going along the lines of the legs
here, really giving you a clear indication of how strong and proud this horse is.
And she does this a lot, too.
She'll pick a pose that's quite elegant and really stretch it out a little bit
so that she can get a clear, really clear read of what she's trying to share.
And it's just a simple drawing of a horse.
But this is I don't really find horses all that amazing
to look at when they're drawn, but when it comes to J.A.W.
Cooper, she's just amazing.
I love looking at her work.
Now, I said Loish was like the queen of all these for me,
but I've really got to hand it down to these few animators here.
I couldn't put them separate.
They're all lumped up together for me.
So let's go down here and look at Glen Keane and Jin
Kim, and Shiyoon Kim, Glen Keane and Jin Kim are like
almost the same side of the same coin with how similar their work is.
But the way they captured gesture
in their line work and in their expressions is just amazing.
They do the characters a lot of the time for Disney.
I'm sure you know Glen Keane is done like,
I think it was Pocahontas, Ariel, Tarzan here,
and I think my favorite is going to be Rapunzel from Tangled.
You can just see how Glen uses these really bold,
vibrant, energetic lines
to convey the muscle and energy of Tarzan.
And it seems almost as if actually, with all these artists,
when they use pencil, they can draw one stroke, and that stroke
seems to occupy multiple moments in time with how they draw.
This is one of my favorite drawings here.
I think this is by Jin Kim, actually.
And as you can see, they're really, really similar in style.
But this is just such an amazing drawing.
I want to be able to draw like this where you just sit down and draw.
There's no layered, stacked like line work layers and then
under sketch and mill sketch, you just continue to refine and explore
with gesture, and you can see how some of the lines are soft and exploratory.
And then he comes back down to really solidify and make a decision
about where he wants to pinch and stretch different parts of the form in the dress.
Looking ashy, you and Kim here this is.
He's more of a he doesn't use as much pencil, at least in the.
Work I've seen, it's very inc based, but even in those crisp lines, the forms here.
This is a very, very loose like he didn't even complete the face here
and a lot of the edges, but you really get it immediate read
for the forms and the expression of the faces here.
Looking at this, like his work that he's done for, I believe.
Big Hero six.
Go Go.
one of my favorite characters there these forms as she rides on the bike.
Just so great this straight, combined with the all the detail of her,
the other side of her body as she's riding the bike here.
Really, really nice.
Only the most necessary strokes and squiggles to convey creases
where she's bent, where she's moving.
It's just so perfect and excellent.
So first off, we got to start off with my The Art of Tangled book.
I really, really recommend
you get this book if you're interested in any of their styles here.
So let me make sure you guys can see it's just so amazing these expressions
and how you can see all the notes that Glen Keane makes about
all of the specific decisions that he's making to convey
these expressions really well.
This is like my favorite drawing I think is probably my favorite drawing.
He's done with the way
the lines are just so beautiful with how some of them are thick
and the extremely precise lines combined with the style
that I find really appealing.
You can look at this turn around here is just the forms and the gestures so, so
nice and the hair
it's...I hope you guys, if you enjoy gesture,
you can get a lot of what I mean without me having to see the right words.
But this is a really cool part here.
Hopefully, you can see this all the ends of her hair when her hair is shorter,
get a lot more detailed and a lot darker, and it really helps drive this movement
just with these turnaround sketches from the top, from her face to the top,
and then coming back to the back of her head there.
It's really, really effective.
And then, you know, when we get into the hair, you can see just how amazing it is.
I will say, though, that Lois's is really, to me, a lot better.
I think Loish could have if lowish did these drawings,
I would have found them a lot more appealing.
But I mean, you're seeing what's here, the volume, the weight,
the movement of the hair, it's all here.
It's really, really excellently done.
And then we've got to talk about Into the Spider-Verse here.
This book is just amazing.
I really recommend you get I talked about it on my studio tour
recently, and man, the drawings that Shiyoon Kim has done in here.
There's all kinds of amazing artists,
but I want to show you guys some of my favorite from Shiyoon Kim.
Like these drawings from The Prowler here.
I don't remember Miles' Uncle's name.
I just know him as a prowler.
But his expressions are just super, super, super awesome.
I love, love, love these drawings so much.
They're just so clear.
Let me see if I can find some better ones here.
These ones are by Shiyoon Kim.
two, You can see
these expressions are just so, so clear and crisp with such minimal effort.
Here the lines every single line and stroke really helps
to sell this character and who they are and the expressions here.
Here's where I really wanted to show you like this movement,
the movement here with Spider-Man here as he's moving around
and the forms in his legs, having that really clear basic movement
again, contrasting this complexity really , really great.
And it's so clear and it has to be because that's what you need for animation.
And all of these different techniques I found are really,
really helpful for me, even in things where it's not animated.
I like love using these for my illustrations as well.
So next up, I think we have an artist
that's not as well known as the others, but still his skill is incredible.
We have Thomas Chamberlain Keen here not related to Glen Keane,
but his he is a master of gesture in shapes and composition.
If you look at these works, it's just so it's just like,
how did I not think of this kind of things where the
the composition is just perfect, like, look at this guy with the hawk hat on,
and then it's just perfectly mirrored
by this robotic structure in the flow, in the energy.
You just feel this this movement as you're looking at this artwork
here, it's just magnificent.
Honestly, look at this dragon.
And if you go into all the details with her own form here, let me actually
might be a little bit hard to see.
So I want to illustrate over it.
You can see the form of her hip. Here he is.
No, he's not shy to change the forms at all.
He will exaggerate the forms
to get the gesture that he wants to get this movement right here.
This is just flowing back
up in the big cat, in the hat, coming back up even higher.
Her arm arching back here just with that tiny
part of this illustration is it's just so much gesture already.
And then this look at this dragon in the the crazy dynamic pose
for everything in the clouds bundling through the sky .
It's really, really lovely to look at and again, looking here, he again,
he will pull and push perspective and forms when he needs to
to get the effect that he wants.
one of my favorites here is when he does these.
Like, really cool fruit designs where he takes a simple reference
and transforms them and then some of his traditional work
you can see here, it really captivates this like weightless feeling underwater,
even though obviously this seems a little distorted or a fisheye lens.
But it's it's just so expertly done for showing the movement here.
I love how you kind of like traverse up the landscape of your body here
and then come back up to this kind of movement between
the dragon and her face and her hair coming back down.
And then this, I just thought was amazing, like, look at this
nice, open, welcoming shape right here in her open arms.
And then the wings come back to exaggerate that form.
Even more is just brilliant with composition and shape here.
It's like, I just want to trace over these big shapes
for every single time he uploads a new artwork.
It's just really, really lovely to look at.
I wonder if you can tell I've tried to keep it chill and keep a,
you know, somber vibe to this video.
But I keep getting excited talking about these artists
because to me, this is the best stuff you can get from an artist.
I love doing this, and this is why I've studied these artists for so long.
And last but definitely not least, I think it's probably
one of the most important artists that I look at today right now is Eliza Ivanova.
She has an incredibly mature, refined, delicate approach to gesture because,
in direct contrast
from Thomas Chamberlain Keen, she does not distort the form at all.
She is extremely accurate and really, really good at keeping the form
photo realist.
I mean, realistic to human anatomy,
but she knows how to get poses in the way she treats the minor details.
Just has this next level of gesture.
So look at this hand pose here.
Like, honestly, nobody draws hands like Eleeza.
It's just it's just crazy.
Good how they'll all be correct.
There's no stylization, but the flow to everything is just so beautiful.
And then the hair.
I really love how she approaches hair because she doesn't stick to,
you know, the movement of the hair.
Realistically, she will just draw lines that she sees, sees fit,
and actually she'll actually go outside of the lines.
She'll add little air into marks everywhere
in order to really enhance the composition.
That's something I really love that she does.
She does, you know, it's traditional, but she will always intentionally leave
all these little marks and have lines go off of the intended subject
just to really sell what she's trying to show
with the composition and the movement and bring it home for the viewer.
I think this is my favorite piece from her because it's just extra smooth.
And of course, I love Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell,
but these really lovely cables and everything,
this is a very common trope with this character, but
I love hear how every single cable has a place that it's going to.
There's varying thicknesses.
It looks very intentional with where they're coming from.
And then she just framed this composition just excellently like
little things like this.
Just get me here how this line is like duplicated right here.
This little squiggly stroke.
Like if you've actually looked at my artwork recently,
a lot of people have already said that it looks a lot like a
and then a metal door, because these things I just find are
just so beautiful and gorgeous to look at and so relaxing,
it feels and natural to work like this.
Like, just look at
this like you can do a portrait that's cool, right?
But like, look at how she does it.
Look at all of these different lines and colors and shapes
that she adds to complement the features in the forms of the face here.
It's just absolutely expertly done
in something that I strive
very often to try to replicate and copy and add to my own work and remember,
you know, as long as you're
looking at a lot of different people like, I show it here, nothing is illegal.
Nothing is like taboo.
This is what we all do.
We find in are inspired by different artists,
and we try to take the things that we enjoy and try to incorporate it
into our own work and explore it for ourselves.
And usually it evolves.
Like for me, I literally cannot perfectly emulate any one artist that I pick.
It's too hard.
I always end up changing and modifying it because I also have
an incredibly wide taste for a different artwork.
I love looking at so many different things,
and sometimes it's even to my own detriment.
So that's going to be it for me today.
If you're interested, you should also check out my Patreon.
I go in-depth and do a lot more.
Show you how I actually study these artists this month,
especially with lowish,
and I also recommend that you stick around for next week's video.
We're going to talk about
how to make your portraits and your faces a lot more interesting, even if you do
the forbidden pretty girls like I do sometimes or all the time.
But you know, I'm going to tell you how to make them more interesting
so that you can stand out
because there's some things that I don't see enough people trying out.
So, yeah, that's it for today.
Thank you all so much for watching again, and I'll see you in the next one! Peace.