Rebecca Kimmel's Anatomy Review 001: GESTURE

#101

great thread!

#102

I hope it’s ok for me to put another pic up on here.

#103

le petit king is doing great - he says he will withdraw all funding if you give Le Papi a hard time!!

#104

Mirwen, LoTekK (I am sooooo confused! What if my mom is “Muskrat187”? -that’s just disturbing!), Bentagon, deadplant155, NOOB, Frogman, Kitami, Solomon, and solarundies!

Thanks for your posts! Great work~ can’t wait to review! :slight_smile:

LoTekK…you’re doomed, man, you’re doomed. I’m going to have to sic Muskrat197 on you for that one, Mr. “Netherlands”. :slight_smile:

~Rebeccak

#105

Hi!
Here´s my try at gesture drawing:D The 2 min limit is killing me - I m not able to draw as fast:shrug: (I know there is also shading but its not time consuming compared to linework)

Rebeca: If I would have a question for you, could you put some light in the process of your drawings (I mean the fast “curvy” ones). Every time I draw pose I first state the proportions by height of heads and angles of main axes for pelvis etc but its not spontaneous. Do you lay some stroke for measure or simply put them on canvas directly??

Thx in advance!

#106

Libor wrote:

>Every time I draw pose I first state the proportions by height of heads and angles of main axes for pelvis etc but its not spontaneous. Do you lay some stroke for measure or simply put them on canvas directly??

Libor,

Great question :). It took me a LONG time to figure out that there are many different kinds of drawings which serve many different purposes.

Gesture drawings utilizing the kinds of “curvy lines” which you mention are good for showing organic movement, and of a more spontaneous nature than gesture drawings using the boxy / cylindrical construction method. Later I’ll post a drawing showing the difference between the two. Believe it or not, you can become efficient at stating the proportions in a spontaneous way by blending these two types of gesture drawings. It’s a matter of flow, and I’ll demonstrate that in a later post, because it is a very important point.

When I first started to learn drawing formally in art school, I really struggled with this issue of trying to get clunky boxes and cylinders to make sense both to me and on the page. You have to have patience ~ also, I really recommend some of Burne Hogarth’s books, because he so CLEARLY breaks down form using very geometric forms. Having said that, I do not recommend DRAWING that way forever - it’s meant as a learning tool, not as a style, and the “curvy lines” you mention I feel are more artistic in a sense and less structural. To blend artistry and intrinsic knowledge/demonstration of structure takes time + practice, and I struggle with these issues all the time, in every drawing I make.

In short: your first drawings done in this analytical, boxy / cylindrical way WILL be and seem clunky. But it is a matter of categorization that is difficult to overcome. Analytical drawings such as these are not meant to be final products – they are meant to help you learn the basic STRUCTURE of the body. As such, they are, in a way, disposable - because the purpose is to lock in your MIND what you grasp about the structure of the body.

As you do many, many drawings and these concepts become second nature, you can remove the “training wheels” which these analytical drawings provide ~ and trust me, I do not call them “training wheels” in a negative way – these types of drawings are CRUCIAL to understanding form. Without STRUCTURE, curvy lines are only that - curvy lines.

Thanks for the question! Hope this helps :slight_smile:
~Rebeccak

#107

so here’s a quick one from me, i’m on a break at work, luckily i brought my wacom today. it’s supposed to be me sitting in my chair hunched over on my desk, but it looks…sort of…not good. i had to go really quick on this one, sorry about that…i just don’t wanna let this opportunity go by, so i had to submit something, thanks again :slight_smile:

EDIT I forgot to mention that I didn’t use a reference, just kind of imagined what i look like and tried to draw just from my imagination…sad to say, this is an improvement :expressionless: .

-loren

#108

here a piece i’m working right now . i didn’t use any reference on this so it took me some time to figure out the whole thing. i know i have some problems with her proportions. but i want to know which other wrong things i have here.!! pls!

#109

Hi Folks

I have been following this thread closely. Lotsa good work/efforts!

Great initiative rebeccak!

Thoughts on life studies without a model:

When I was doing alot of figure drawing without the benefit of a live model, I bought a couple of cheap full length mirrors - about $15.00 each. I stripped down and drew myself in a great variety of poses - often holding the pose, observing and then doing quick memory poses (pose - look - draw; pose - look - draw etc…).
Another good approach is to hold a pose for as long as you can - until it hurts! - then draw the hurt - that is where the important parts of the pose are.

again good work - I will be posting some stuff soon.

edit

some thoughts from another great teacher Kimon Nicolades:

ON GESTURE:

“draw not what the thing looks like, not even what it is, but WHAT IT IS DOING”

ON LEARNING TO DRAW:

“I believe that entirely to much emphasis is placed upon the paintings and drawings that are made in art schools. If you go to a singing teacher, he will first give you breathing exersises, not a song. No one will expect you to sing those exersises before an audience.”

“There is a vast difference between drawing, and making drawings. The things you do - over and over again - are but practice. They should represent to you only the result of an effort to study, the by-product of your mental and physical activity. Your progress is charted not on paper, but in the increased knowledge with which you look at life around you.”

“THE SOONER YOU MAKE YOUR FIRST FIVE THOUSAND MISTAKES, THE SOONER YOU WILL BE ABLE TO CORRECT THEM”

Gord

#110

One thing I have been taught while doing gesture drawings is to have more confident strokes and efficient strokes. My teacher also told us that picture more the action of the pose instead of how it really is visually, imagine how it feels to be in that pose.

I love seeing some of the master gesture drawings at times because the use of the medium is sooooo efficient. On some drawings you can see a line that started from the head and went to the feet
Just in one stroke
and adding line weight.

#111

Oh boy, this is a wonderful opportunity. I’m really looking forward to getting some help and practice in figure drawing. Here’s the best of the 4 gesture drawings I’ve done so far. I’ve already noticed that I tend to have a major problem with drawing the torso too long. I’ve had to correct myself on that over and over. I fact I think this one still has the torso too long…

Done with a live model in PhotoShop with a Wacom. The sheet of paper on the tablet trick definitely seems to help some…

#112

Here is what i got. Clearly looks like a copy of the posture from the sketch at the begining of this thread. I thought it was good, so here you go. It looks better on paper.

#113

Some gesture drawings:

imagined:

from lifedrawing workshops:

#114

To the B-Boys on the forum!

-crickets-…

Anyways I figured breakdancing is a great resource of outrageous poses. And though I could have done this from life I dont think any of my friends would manage this for more than 3 seconds.

I tried to represent the tension in his right arm but I dont do something this dificult justice.

Btw Rebecca I tried your peanut way of blocking out the torso but it just messes with me.
My friend taught me to block it out by spliting it in 3 parts the ribcage the midsection and the hips. If I’m wrong in doing this please tell me.

#115

cool thread idea, ill have to participate when i get some free time. :thumbsup:

#116

maranello55,

I revised one of your first submitted drawings. I hope you don’t mind, but I reviewed this one a little differently in order to make a point:

Your original drawing is interesting because it makes a point nicely about using the peanut as a basic shape of the torso ~ if you look at your drawing, you can see that it can be taken for either a front or a back view. This is a useful tool to use when laying in the figure. It’s one of the reasons why the peanut shape is so useful ~ because, depending on what features of the body you choose to add to the basic peanut shape, you can easily create the impression of either a front or back view.

So, for example, without facial features and a line to denote the buttocks, the bottom drawing which I did could be taken for a front view as easily as your drawing could be taken for a back view.

Use this trick to your advantage! You can safely assume that the peanut shape can be used in any situation. It’s sort of the stem cell of your drawing toolkit - it isn’t a particular thing until you tell it what it should be by adding the proper features to make it look like either a front or a back view.

Comments and crits for your drawing:I like the energy and boldness of your lines. All you require is practice, as you seem to have grasped the basic concept of gesture quickly. I would say that you should LENGTHEN your form a bit - the torso is a bit scrunched, with cartoonish rather than human proportions. This is not a bad thing if that is what you were aiming for - but I would say in general that if, in your drawings, the heads were a bit smaller, the proportions would be improved.

Good work so far! I hope this helps :slight_smile:
~Rebeccak

#117

very nice thread … and impressive scretches … RESPECT to all of u :buttrock:

igi

#118

OK here are my efforts.

i have done 3 drawings so far each trying for different effects and also focusing on different things. not all of these are 2-3 min in fact only the last one is, the first two are about 15-20 min

  drawing 1 (these are in order of me doing them)
  
[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y244/Layer01/drawing-1.jpg[/img]
  
  drawing 2
  
[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y244/Layer01/drawing-2.jpg[/img]

drawing 3
  
[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y244/Layer01/drawing-3.jpg[/img]

Things that irk me (now in retrospect, damn hindsight):
Drawing 1, collar bone is too low curses
Drawing 2, various anatomy things are a bit off here, like the neck muscles.
Drawing 3, is all round weird, perspective is wack, and sizes are thus a little crazy. but i was looking more for speed in drawing them and flowing lines. si i’m not too worried about num 3.

  feel free to shoot them down :) all C&C welcome
#119

Here are a few gesture drawings I did from photos. I am concentrating on weight and where it should be applied when I draw.

Oh and thatnks againd RebeccaK for doing thhis for all of us!



Copyright - Fabian Molina

#120

OK…after looking at my last uploads i decided i was not happy and decided to hit the table again.
now that my hand is healed i will start… hehehe but seriously i drew this picture whitch i am so far pleased with (until my friends point out all the soon to be obvious errors lol)
i always found drawing twisting hard so i gave it another shot armed with what i have now read in books and in this thread (thanks rebeccak)

-rebeccak i would love some insight on this sort of problem as drawing a torso front on/side on is easy but the second it starts twisting and turning headachs start popping up :wink:
so am i on the right track? are there some rules i should be trying?

oh and i drew this in about 5 minutes, and then cleaned it up in a further 5 (ie: shading and rubbing out excess lines) so dont think it falls in the category of quick movment sketch…but you know once you pop you cant stop :smiley:

C&C welcome