How to SEE THE GESTURE in Any Pose (one tip)

[@w00olf]

Thank you so much SIOBHAN TWOMEY This video is very useful for me. This video has allowed me to understand and learn a lot Your style of explaining is very simple and easy to understand Once again Thank you very much I hope you continue to make such useful videos

[@Drawing-Life]

Hi Mohsin! Thank you sooo much - thanks for your comment last week that gave me the inspiration for this video, it's so useful for me to hear that question and I'm glad it was helpful! Keep drawing and keep creating! and keep me posted how you get on... :)

[@salviadorrii]

"...Artistic creation isn't a set of rules you apply to your work, it's a process." Thanks for the reminder I lose sight of that sometimes.

[@Drawing-Life]

Thanks Melissa! I think we all do, so much pressure to "get it right" ! We need to trust processes more. Thanks so much for watching and leaving a comment :)

[@hikari1360]

I only recently started drawing again after nearly a decade, and I felt so stuck with gestures. I kept getting overwhelmed with where the right place to start drawing was and trying to keep everything proportional and inside my guides. I was so frustrated when time kept running out before I finished laying down a rough draft. Even giving myself more time to finish the drawing didn't help because it took so long for a single pose and it looked so stiff. I realize now that I was afraid to mess up, and that's why I hesitated so much. Realizing that it doesn't have to be "right" and that I can start anywhere and feel my way through the pose helped a lot! I've been binging all your videos and I feel like I'm finally having fun again!

[@Drawing-Life]

Wow, this is amazing for me to hear, thank you so much I really appreciate your feedback because this is exactly why I wanted to make these videos. It's all about giving yourself permission to explore drawing in a different way than you normally would, without the pressure to make a "correct" figure or correct drawing. So glad this resonates with you and I hope it helps and supports you as you work on developing your art! Keep me posted 😊❤

[@1southpaw2]

Much appreciated. I have always struggled to draw human anatomy. Decided to revisit the subject and your videos help. I have been struggling with gesture drawing. Breaking down of forms with your visiuals, encourages me to start gesture drawings. Thank you.

[@Drawing-Life]

Ah that's great to hear your feedback, I really appreciate it. So glad I was able to use the visuals in this video, you are right i think it really helps to see it broken down and it's much easier to explain too! Thanks for watching, and supporting this channel always! :)

[@billy7721]

I just started learning to draw gesture and your video helped me alot. Thank you very much!

[@sorensnowhere]

i absolutely love this. i was too focused on the line of action and didn't think about the movements of individual limbs.

[@Drawing-Life]

That's awesome to hear, glad that made sense to you! i find it a good way to look for anatomy and gesture at the same time. Thanks for watching and leaving a comment! :)

[@rolynart]

You are exactly what I've needed to help me teach myself. I struggled a bit to understand figure drawing movement, but in this video you helped me to remember a gesture's fluid and dynamic motion, especially the way you described anatomy gesture. My first sketch with your method had pleasing results to my eyes. Thank you so much!

[@Drawing-Life]

Thank you so much! I really appreciate hearing this feedback, this is awesome to know you found this useful - gesture is sometimes just taken for granted and there is an actual method to it, even though it's ultimately an intuitive and responsive way of drawing. So, I'm so glad this made sense. It's especially important for animators (i'm presuming your an animator! ?) Hope you keep practicing! :)

[@rolynart]

@@Drawing-Life Oh yeah, definitely a underrated aspect of art. I aspire to animate something one day😅, but your lessons will no doubt help me achieve something in the future! Definitely glad I found you on the first "gesture art style" search, and more worth Subscribing to!

[@Drawing-Life]

@@rolynart ah me too! That's good to know - haha, I must use that tag in future videos 😀 👍

[@mattwj77]

Very grateful for your artwork, videos, and your overall approach. I find that some of the more anatomical approaches to figure drawing become focused on depicting idealized versions of the human form (often female). These can be incredibly beautiful, of course, but don't help me connect with my own experience of life with other people who usually don't look like that. Your approach goes deeper, which I greatly appreciate. I had to stop your video to write down this quote in my book of inspiration for art: "You will always have a method of discovery through your own marks. The true nature of artistic creation isn't a set of rules you apply to your work. It's really a process. Your job as an artist is to uncover that process." That's gold.

[@Drawing-Life]

Hi Matt, ah thank you so much, your comment means everything!! I'm so glad to read this and to know that you appreciate and resonate with this approach. And that you feel inspired - yes, for sure, the act of art is process, not outcome. It's great if there is a good piece at the end, but I think your job as an artist is to explore that process. Figure drawing tends to be thought of as anatomical drawing simply because it's natural to want to "get things right" but there is so much value in uncovering a way to express what you feel, as well as what you see. And yes as you say - to draw real life, not an idealized version, or design. And ironically at the end of the day, an expressive approach can lead to more accurate drawings! :)

[@mattwj77]

🙌

[@karenconnors6740]

Gesture drawing seems to be so complicated because everyone has a different approach and I suppose you learn what is right for you as you go along. I have been practicing for about a year off and on and I think your video was so helpful because you weren't saying use C S and I lines to describe the pose. More intuitively look for the movements in different parts of the body and how they fit together. I think it is still a long journey to get at all competent but worth the work

[@Drawing-Life]

Hi, yes I completely agree there are so many confusing videos each saying different things. It’s likely because as you say everyone has a different approach. I was taught to look at gesture exactly as the word means : a movement or meaning of the body. Learning to draw the movement of a pose really helps you to understand the forms and the dynamic aspects of the anatomy, rather than always treating the figure as a still life. As for using S and C curves , that’s a simplified way of seeing the overall shape the forms make, but ultimately not useful in drawing. S and C curves actually originate from animation techniques, where figures are highly stylized and simplified. Animators use S and C curves to plot the flow of movement from one frame to another. Somehow that has been adopted into Figure Drawing to "simplify the figure". Personally I think the best way to learn gesture drawing is when you are drawing from life with a live model. So if you can get to life drawing sessions I think you’ll be able to get a lot more out of this technique. Thanks for watching! Let me know if you have any other questions

[@itlugannipotpot5508]

I just want to thank you so much for this video! My mind has been CLOUDED recently when I do gesture drawings, but when I watched your video if made more sense to me and because of that I believe im getting the process! Thank you so much, it really helped me alot too with your demonstrations!

[@Drawing-Life]

Wow that's the best response to hear as far as i'm concerned!! Thanks for leaving a comment and letting me know, that means so much. Getting to understand the process of this approach and the potential it has for your drawing is huge - hope you continue to practice and explore gesture in your drawings! Keep me updated :)

[@chekovrules]

This is great, I especially loved seeing the demonstration of finding the different motion in the pose. It was really helpful to see it overlaid directly on the reference, and then to see how you translated that motion to the gesture drawing itself. I also appreciate the clarification on line of action, that made a lot more sense than how I've seen it described sometimes. I put some more of your tips into action last night while doing my daily practice and that made things much more fun!

[@Drawing-Life]

Thank you so much!! This is great feedback to get, I really appreciate it. So happy that this made sense and that you could apply it in your work! That's awesome, let me know how you get on if you do any more of this practice - over time you'll start to see how this feeds into more sustained and detailed drawing, so keep me posted! 😊❤

[@ArTiS495]

Wow excellent drawing 👍 i always stay connected 🤝✔️🎉👍

[@brangreenwood4697]

Thank you for this! My tendency is to over render, so sketches wind up more like an anatomy study than gestures. I'm going to another life drawing session tomorrow so I plan to make use of the advice you've shared here 🙂 Will try to follow the movement of the form, rather than focusing on the form details!

[@Drawing-Life]

Hi Bran! Thank you so much for watching and for leaving a comment. So interesting to hear that - yes this approach to gesture drawing is definitely best experienced when drawing from life, particularly the short poses. Let me know how you got on!! Enjoy life drawing, I am looking forward to getting back to drawing from life soon :)

[@brangreenwood4697]

@@Drawing-Life It went well, thank you! I kept reminding myself of your video, and tried to follow the flow of the muscles and motion. I'm still not as loose as I'd like to be, but the model commented that my sketches made her feel positive about herself. That is the highest praise I could hope for from a first time model 🙂 Hope you can get back to in person life drawing soon! Thank you for all your videos!

[@Drawing-Life]

@@brangreenwood4697 wow! definitely - if the model had positive comments to the drawings that's huge and I would certainly take that feedback! That's wonderful - keep practicing, I also highly recommend a book called "The Natural Way to Draw" as a resource for life drawing, i have a video here about it as well, if you want to check that out. I'm hoping to get to life drawing soon! 👍👍

[@josephgilbert6250]

Thank you for this fabulous video! After doing your exercise only twice since yesterday, my line confidence has increased, and I am no longer overwhelmed about where to begin drawing "action" figures. Sketching people around me will also be so much more easy now.

[@Drawing-Life]

Ah that's amazing to hear Joseph!! I'm so glad, thanks for that feedback. Definitely keep practicing drawing people around you - it's the best and quickest way to see improvement. Keep to short drawing times. Awesome! 👍👍

[@ianhodgson8154]

It was good to see the reference images as you were working. Learning a lot from your videos, Thank-you.

[@Drawing-Life]

Thanks Ian! Really appreciate the support, thanks for watching and leaving a comment. Yes, i can't always include reference images unfortunately, as I want to avoid getting strikes from KZbin, but where I can I really try to do so, it does make a difference for explaining aspects of the approach.

[@MrAlphaa1]

One big takeaway for me from this was to add value where it is in the gesture like you with the charcoal. digital can be hard and i was kinda stuck in drawing 2d or geometric figures without value thank you for that .

[@Drawing-Life]

Great point! It adds so much to your drawing, and doesn't have to be precise, just gives it that extra expressive quality. Agree though, drawing digital can be a hard medium to draw gestures in, but loose lines and swatches of value are great. When drawing digitally, I also love to block in really big patches of value first, and then draw over top of that with darker linework using a small brush. You get to follow the shapes created in the values and pull out the figure more intuitively. hOpe that helps!! :)

[@seagabri]

Thanks. Nice voice, selection of music and of course the drawings. 🌹

[@garsyca]

You really hook me !! Thanks for your class' 💯🤗

[@Drawing-Life]

That's awesome! Thank you so much for watching 😊

[@gitimotevalian8717]

Thank you so much for the drawing 💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐

[@vril7340]

omg this is so... great, you make it sound and look really easy tysm for this

[@Drawing-Life]

Thank you so much! really appreciate you watching and leaving a comment, glad it's helpful

[@colleenchristopher2035]

Thank you leaving resource in view.

[@kalpanaartwork4230]

Awesome

[@Drawing-Life]

Thanks friend! :)

[@NicolasThibeault]

omg this is so helpful for me。。。thank you for posting this video！！😊😊

[@Drawing-Life]

Thank you so much ! So glad this was useful, that's made my day 😊👍

[@jangregory1690]

You make this look so easy thank you !

[@KarawangChannel7]

Creative and artistic video friend

[@Drawing-Life]

Thank you so much 😀

[@brannonmcclure6970]

Hey buddy. I have to check out your drawing prowess… again.🧑‍🎨♾️✍️

[@franz3810]

amazing...I strive to be as good as you

[@Drawing-Life]

That's very kind of you to say :) thank you so much for watching! :)

[@jangregory1690]

Fabulous tips here

[@user-ze1kb9wp1l]

Relaxing and easy to learn 😀

[@Drawing-Life]

Thanks! appreciate your comment, thanks for watching 😊

[@Andrei-f6q]

thank you very much awesome

[@bolangart415]

thank for sharing

[@Drawing-Life]

Thank you too

[@nathankrowitz3884]

Love these

[@Drawing-Life]

Hi Nathan, thank you so much! thanks for watching :)

[@nahidchowdhury463]

thnx for taking your time to educate us, ❤❤

[@Drawing-Life]

Ah, I'm glad it's useful! thank you for watching, means so much :)

[@cripsudroiid452]

Hermoso verle dibujar maestra😌

[@krupali-gallery]

Great sharing ❤️

[@liamoliver6886]

Great stuff Sibh. Thanks a Million.

[@Drawing-Life]

Thank you Liam! Thanks so much for watching :)

[@tarathomson2191]

Such a really helpful video. You are a superb teacher :)

[@Drawing-Life]

Hi Tara, wow thank you so much, that's such a lovely comment to get! i really appreciate it :) ❤ thanks for watching

[@sydene54]

very useful, thank you

[@georgerabbitearl]

Thanks for the video. As I saw the first minutes I was thinking on go from big to small like in a classic drawing approach. First the big line of action or longest axis connecting body parts, than the smaller parts of the body. Can you think that way?

[@Drawing-Life]

That's a great way to think about tit and probably sums up the process of working in totality - working from the general to the more specific. Only thing I would caution in a gesture drawing is that working ever smaller could force you into details which might counter the gestural approach. Yes, you can look at the smaller areas, but keep it loose and expressive. I try to come back to the idea of the gesture as capturing the overall pose. So in that sense, you can go from the big line of action, working into smaller parts of the body, but then keep looking back at that overall gesture and see if you are still in touch with it as you dial into details.

[@draw_ki_]

Great video!

[@Drawing-Life]

Thank you, appreciate it :)

[@arcaces2206]

We need more videos on linear rhythms.

[@Drawing-Life]

Totally agree!! It's a glaring omission in most figure drawings, and one simple aspect that can make a good drawing sooooo much better. I'll try to make more videos, at the risk of repeating myself 😂 Thanks for watching here, ❤

[@arcaces2206]

@@Drawing-Life yes it is the obvious left out thing in my drawings, and i want to get better, but there's a problem. I don't understand the lines that flow into each other- and how to applied them in the actual figure. I don't know if I need to make the contours have rhythm, or make my own lines that flow in the figure. I got books about figure drawing and only went to the rhythms/ gesture chapters. I look at videos. I looked at examples, i just can't figure it out. Can you please do videos about asymmetrical lines, more about rhythms, and do stuff based on michael hampton's book?

[@arcaces2206]

What do the linear rhythms indicate?

[@Drawing-Life]

@@arcaces2206 They can indicate the poise, the tilt, or twist in the pose, the tension or expansion throughout the body. In short, that movement. In addition to that, I feel that linear rhythms can also indicate an aspect of the model that you , the artist, can sense - an aspect that is invisible, or at least, is beyond just the visual outline of the body. To see these types rhythms, the artist needs to be able to understand so much more about the pose of the model than just the anatomy and proportion. They must understand a kind of flow that runs through the anatomy, that connects each part of the anatomy to a unified "whole". Sounds abstract?? .... just focus on the gesture! :) I promise you, that will show you how to achieve rhythm and flow in your line work.

[@arcaces2206]

@@Drawing-Life but how do i apply them? And i been focusing on gesture for a long period of time.

[@CarlosHernandez-rp1kp]

Buen video justo lo que necesitaba, retome el dibujo y estoy estancado en anatomia, pero aplicare esto, para no frustrarme tanto jajaja saludos

[@Drawing-Life]

Muchas gracias Carlos! gracias per vel el video; me alegro que sea de ayuda! :)

[@creaaam]

Thank you for this video 🙂

[@Drawing-Life]

Thank you for watching! and leaving a comment. glad it was useful :)

[@samankucher5117]

another great video :)

[@OMAR-vq3yb]

I'm just starting my drawing journey. Thank you for this content. Also, what is the song and genre of music called at 0:50?

[@Drawing-Life]

Hi Omar! So exciting to be at the beginning of your drawing journey and to see where it leads you! :) I get all the music for my videos from epidemic sounds, which is a content creator site for music. This track is called Last Days by Lonov.

[@Fuyukori]

What would gesture drawings help me with? I would like to know as a beginner here. Also are they supposed to be a messy kind of drawing but with capturing the flow like what you said ? It looks really interesting and fun

[@Drawing-Life]

Gesture drawings mostly help with figure drawings - especially drawing from life. Since the figure is complex and sometimes overwhelming to draw, a gesture drawing is a way to capture the whole figure in a more intuitive, responsive drawing. They do look like messy, but they capture what the artist sees and feels beyond just the visual. Another thing that gesture drawing can help you with is to get very good line confidence and dynamic range of drawing marks. Hope this helps! Thanks so much for watching :)

[@Fuyukori]

@@Drawing-Life thank you for the reply but i would like to know what will help with proportion to see and draw better?

[@Drawing-Life]

@@Fuyukori i know to say "lots of practice" isn't the answer you're looking for , or necessarily what you mean in the question. You will improve; but one thing that I found helped me with proportion is to constantly compare the part you are drawing at any given time to another part on the figure: so if you are drawing the arm, be looking at where the arm is in relation to the torso; it's a way of visually assessing and measuring without stopping the drawing. Hope this makes sense?

[@we4r119]

I regularly attend life drawing classes, but our models don’t have the same energy in their poses. They often just sit, stand or lie down without any visually dramatic gesture. How do I find the gesture or weight and balance in that kind of pose? Actually there is more action and gesture when they lie down, but then I feel confronted with foreshortening.

[@michaelidahosa914]

I notice how you always do gesture drawings using the overhand grip. Is it okay to also use the tripod grip to do gesture drawings?

[@Drawing-Life]

Hi Michael, yes of course, use any one that feels natural to you, it's important to your signature way of drawing. I use the overhand grip because it much more expressive for me, and at the same time I don't feel that I'm controlling the charcoal or pencil, which allows for more unexpected and dynamic marks - when i hold the pencil like I do when I'm writing there's a lot more feeling of controlling the line. I hope this makes sense!

[@michaelidahosa914]

@@Drawing-Life Okay, but I've also noticed other artists that do gesture drawings tend to also use the overhand grip. Is it like a better approach to gesture drawing or does it have more advantage?

[@Drawing-Life]

@@michaelidahosa914 In my opinion it is a better way to hold your pencil, it gives more fluid and expressive marks, but again, it's also up to you as to what feels more comfortable - but try it out and see if you get good results, I think at first it will feel awkward, but after a while you'll get used to it

[@michaelidahosa914]

@@Drawing-Life Okay, thank you so much for the feedback

[@Drawing-Life]

@@michaelidahosa914 Let me know if you try it, I'd love to hear how you get on :)

[@ElhaMmHosseInzadeH]

🙏🙏🙏

[@rickboggan6686]

Ah,. A starting point!

[@warlordartist4966]

I quit ary because I don't like using references and it sucks I know reference is good but in my mind I always imagine top artist creating things from their mind I want to manga art but I'm awful and don't get enough time to do art

[@Drawing-Life]

Every artist uses reference - All art is made based on reference, and it is how you re-interpret your reference that makes your art unique. Top artists if they draw without a reference image it's only because they have been looking and studying reference their whole life. Keep going with your art!!

[@KURENANI]

Do both draw things you like,study references aka anatomy on the side and in no time if you put in effort ,you will reach a proffesional standard