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So guys, help me out here:
I really can't wrap my head around gesture drawing. You know that fancy stuff that everyone says that is essential to figure drawing? Yes, that is the one.
I've read Hampton book's chapter about it.
I watched Proko do it.
I've read quickposes tutorials about
And I still don't know if I am doing it right... I should not focus on anatomy, until I've to! I should be loose, until I shouldn't... AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! Everytime I do it, I got more and more confused.
I don't know if I am doing it right. My 2 minutes drawings looks like the 30 second drawings of those masters! Could you guys help me knowing if I am walking to the right direction? Thanks!!!!
Here is the disaster! 
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Well first of all give yourself a break if you don't want to go crazy.It ok to compare yourself to the master but understand your not there yet you cannot be expecting to already have there mastery.
For advise on gesture well the issue is that gesture to a certain degre abstract in itself it something that take time to develop the feel for it i would say.My advise is to persevere and also try to limit the amount of source you study from pick one and stick with it for a while than change to an other and once you have study a few mix what you learn as best as possible and see what work and doesn't,
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Hey I'm kind of workin on it too. I find gesture to be a difficult concept just because there are so many different takes on it. Some people say don't draw the contours, just draw the flow of the figure. Some people say draw the action, what the figure is doing. There's Mattesi's FORCE stuff which is it's own kind of thing.
Some people keep things in proportion, while other people recommend exaggerating the pose as far as possible until it breaks.
Most of these ideas run into logical trouble when you have a pose which doesn't have any clear dramatic action. Standing or sitting for example, which are two things people, especially models, tend to do a lot...
Sorry, not trying to be confusing about the topic, but I don't think there is a definitive answer to whether you are going about it in the right way. Depends who you ask and what you're trying to do with it. One thing I will say is that you want to look for the flow and rhythm of parts, and how they relate to each other. Your drawings establish the general pose, so we can easily see what the figure is doing. But there's not much flow or rhythm to them.
To make things simple, you could just pick an artist you like, and whose gestures and explanations make the most sense to you, and just going with that for a while. If you like Proko, just go with what he says for a while and see what you can learn from it.
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After reading JosephCow post i thought i would add on top of what he suggested to try to take an artist that is from the animation field this way you know there better chance they are required to have strong gestural fundamental because it a big fundamental in that profession.
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I think an animator might have great gesture drawings, but they would likely look very different to what a different kind of artist would do. For example an animator would probably focus on exaggerated proportions and movement. Whereas a fine artist would probably focus on accurate proportions and the figure's placement in space. Both can be right for what they are trying to do.
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Quote:Well first of all give yourself a break if you don't want to go crazy.It ok to compare yourself to the master but understand your not there yet you cannot be expecting to already have there mastery.
For advise on gesture well the issue is that gesture to a certain degre abstract in itself it something that take time to develop the feel for it i would say.My advise is to persevere and also try to limit the amount of source you study from pick one and stick with it for a while than change to an other and once you have study a few mix what you learn as best as possible and see what work and doesn't,
Ah yes, I will do it slowly. It is a harder concept than it looks like.
Quote:Hey I'm kind of workin on it too. I find gesture to be a difficult concept just because there are so many different takes on it. Some people say don't draw the contours, just draw the flow of the figure. Some people say draw the action, what the figure is doing. There's Mattesi's FORCE stuff which is it's own kind of thing.
Some people keep things in proportion, while other people recommend exaggerating the pose as far as possible until it breaks.
Most of these ideas run into logical trouble when you have a pose which doesn't have any clear dramatic action. Standing or sitting for example, which are two things people, especially models, tend to do a lot...
Sorry, not trying to be confusing about the topic, but I don't think there is a definitive answer to whether you are going about it in the right way. Depends who you ask and what you're trying to do with it. One thing I will say is that you want to look for the flow and rhythm of parts, and how they relate to each other. Your drawings establish the general pose, so we can easily see what the figure is doing. But there's not much flow or rhythm to them.
To make things simple, you could just pick an artist you like, and whose gestures and explanations make the most sense to you, and just going with that for a while. If you like Proko, just go with what he says for a while and see what you can learn from it.
Ha! Confusing, isn't it? I agree with you, JoséVaca, every single artist seems to have a different opinion about it! I was also studying Scott Harris' Udemy course and he has another different approach to it!!!
Maybe gesture is a scam! Ha! 
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In my opinion, figure drawing is very "mileage-based". You are supposed to do A LOT of it and learn in time how to portray the weight of the figures and how human anatomy comes together. It's really supposed to compliment your regular anatomy studies and show the human body in action.
I have been doing it for about 10 years now. In the beginning, I would fill Photoshop layer after layer with tons of quick figure drawing sketches, and it has really paid off throughout the years. One thing I wish I did earlier was to take an analytical approach to it rather than just pushing for more and more mileage. It could probably have saved me some time in the long run.
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(01-20-2021, 09:53 PM)bonesworth Wrote: every single artist seems to have a different opinion about it! I was also studying Scott Harris' Udemy course and he has another different approach to it!!!
This is true, and it's the case with pretty much all abstracted practice techniques like this. Everyone has a way of doing it that makes the most sense to them, personally. I also would not be surprised if there have been great artists who never did any "traditional" gesture drawing at all.
If gesture drawing makes no sense to you at all, I suggest you ignore it for now and study in a way that feels more productive to you. You may naturally come back to it later.
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Quote:I have been doing it for about 10 years now. In the beginning, I would fill Photoshop layer after layer with tons of quick figure drawing sketches, and it has really paid off throughout the years. One thing I wish I did earlier was to take an analytical approach to it rather than just pushing for more and more mileage. It could probably have saved me some time in the long run.
I am kind of confused, Zorrentos, what did you mean by analitical approach.
Quote:If gesture drawing makes no sense to you at all, I suggest you ignore it for now and study in a way that feels more productive to you. You may naturally come back to it later.
Thank you, Inimigo Púbico and you know what? I won't ignore it, I will keep practicing it, but not care that much.
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@bonesworth
What I mean is to actually take time to study and research what figure drawing actually is, and what it's supposed to do. IMO, figure drawing is meant to teach us how to draw good poses with a lot of weight, 3D and dynamism. So for me, It would have benefited me more to spend my time researching that in the beginning rather then just doing page after page of figures.
One book I recommend on the subject is Force: Dynamic Life Drawing
https://www.amazon.com/FORCE-Dynamic-Dra...1138919578
I also recommend the class "Analytical Figure drawing" by CGMA
https://www.cgmasteracademy.com/courses/...re-drawing
Both of these resources taught me a lot about what the figure actually is and what figure drawing is supposed to teach me. In combination with continuing to draw lots of figures from photo reference, life and imagination.
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