ONE WAY to Improve Your Gesture Drawings FAST!

[@glitterpt]

I am absolutely mesmerized by watching you draw! Truly inspiring! I thank you so much for producing these videos. You are amazing! I live in the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts. I am a retired elementary school art teacher and now I have some time to focus on my love for expressing the human form.

[@Drawing-Life]

Hi Sarah, what an amazing comment! Thank you so much, i'm so happy to hear this, the figure is such an immense subject to draw and it's great that you have time now to develop your own practice through this ! :) thanks for watching

[@we1n1ng]

You have a stunning studio and bonus points for the doggy 🐶. Thank you for the tips 😊

[@ThePencilRoomOnline]

So much energy in your gesture drawings, just lovely! Greetings from NZ :)

[@GreenlifeFin]

I really love these kind of drawings most from you. They are so beautiful and brilliant! I just bought newspaper pad and will start with charcoal. Thus style is my goal to learn really.

[@LucJMVanAssche]

Setting the marks...again...makes me humble.. great post!

[@chekovrules]

Fantastic as always, thank you! I haven't been doing much gesture the last few months due to illness and am trying to get back into the habit, and I was feeling a little rusty. This was a great reminder of what to focus on and I especially liked the mention that gesture isn't about doing a fast drawing of the whole figure. I'm going to try to slow down and be a bit more intentional!

[@Drawing-Life]

Awesome to hear that! Let me know if you find slowing down makes a difference - it does for me, and it helps me to be more intentional about mark making. I hope you are feeling better now! A few months is a long time to be down, hope you are feeling strong!

[@4rl0ng]

You're the only one who helped me understand and clear things up

[@Drawing-Life]

Ah thank you so much, this is great feedback, I really appreciate it :)

[@senhueichen3062]

Really like and enjoy the way you talk.

[@rolfarnquist8343]

Hi Siobhan. Slowly getting caught up on all your great videos. Thanks so much for taking the time to make them! Much appreciated! Question for you… do you think it matters how you do the drawings. What I mean is is it better to stand up and draw on an easel or stand up and draw on a table or sitting down and drawing on a table or easel? In watching your videos I think I have seen you drawing in all these different ways. Obviously, if you are drawing people in a cafe, you would probably be sitting down while if you are in a studio class you would probably be standing up at an easel. Drawing outside, you might be sitting down and drawing on a clip board. In college, our instructor always made us stand up and draw on a slanted table. What do you think is best? Does it make a difference? What do you prefer doing? Whew! That was a long question! Thanks so much!

[@Drawing-Life]

Great question Rolf! The answer is - especially if you are in life drawing, drawing the model from life - then, if you can draw standing up, it's much better because it gives you more energy to put in your drawings; and it helps to have your subject on a direct eye line, and it also helps to get better line quality because your arm is stretched out. If you're sitting down, people tend to slouch a bit and the energy goes way down, plus you don't have a full view of your drawing because it's at 90 degrees from you, and then you also have to constantly lift your head up to look at the subject, whereas standing, or with a tilted board, if you're in a good position you can just flick your eyes back and forth. Again, this is for drawing or painting from life, but I would definitely say it applies to drawing or painting from photos as well. I prefer to stand for sure, but for most of these videos I use an overhead camera to get a better and more straight-on angle of the drawing, so for that reason I have to have the drawing board flat. But i'll still stand when drawing. Thanks for this question, and so glad you're back!! Hope your drawing is going well ! I really appreciate your support thanks for watching :)

[@h.sinclair]

another great demonstration! You make things look so easy!

[@KarenDodo9]

Please can you link the video that you are talking about at 3:45 and all other links that you discuss the point of gesture drawing, I need to drill this into my head and hand. Thank you for all your tips

[@Drawing-Life]

Hi Karen, yes sure - the video is linked up in the top right but sometimes those links don't pop up not sure why, but here it is: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rIjVloCajaahbLM I hope this helps, I'll try to get more videos out over the next few weeks, stay tuned. Are you going to life drawing - if you can get to a live figure drawing session all these points will become much more clear and you'll have a direct experience of what I'm talking about, it's not quite the same when drawing from a photo. I try to take what I experience in the life drawing room and apply it to the way I approach drawing from a photo.

[@DTFreak1]

Saludos desde México!!! 👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼

[@Drawing-Life]

Ah thank you 🇲🇽 😊

[@MKANDRESTINPEACE]

i really enjoy your usefull videos and your relaxing voice 👌👌

[@Drawing-Life]

Ah that's so wonderful to hear - thank you 😊 I had laryngitis the last couple of weeks, so I was really hoping my voice would be ok today! 😂nice of you to say that. Thanks for watching

[@rosemarybunch6846]

Wow! Amazing how you constructed the hand of the figure in the last drawing! I held my breath trying to understand all your movements until I saw the result. Impressive how natural the pose of the hand resulted! 😍 Great job, Siobhan!

[@Drawing-Life]

@RosemanryBunch, thank you so much!! I think I also held my breath through much of it, hoping to get the right marks down!! For hands it can be so tricky because there are so many shapes, I usually try to get the shadow shapes around the hand right, and that usually works for at least a gesture drawing

[@marcusdekker]

No doubt, the hand of the master😁

[@YantoKiernz]

Its the best gesture artist channel that i find, gesture is still my weakness so i need to learn a lot from you 🙂👍👍👍❤

[@Drawing-Life]

Thank you so much for saying that! I really appreciate it coming from you, i just subbed - your work is very realistic, so it's wonderful to me that you are keen to develop your gesture drawing - i think it's a great balance to such precise and detailed artwork like yours :)

[@YantoKiernz]

@@Drawing-Life yes, i have joined you too and ready to learn 😁🙏🙏🙏

[@maryf.1956]

Greetings from USA. I just recently discovered your channel. ❤✍🏻

[@Drawing-Life]

Hi Mary, that's so wonderful!! So glad you're here! Thank you for watching ❤

[@kalpanaartwork4230]

Awesome

[@marcusdekker]

Rhythm in your drawings!!!!!! I like that, i am a musician and videographer; everything is about rhythm. Now we have rhythm in drawings aswell; yes i can relate to that!!! I think you are a Zen Master!

[@Drawing-Life]

Haha, thank you - zen mind, beginners mind I hope!! Yes rhythm is a key, important element in drawing ! Often forgotten because we focus so much on making a perfect line, but the imperfections and loose quality of the line can also add a rhythm, it's what can make a drawing feel alive

[@marcusdekker]

@@Drawing-Life Inperfections in art. I've been thinking about this subject a long time (from when i was making jewlry) Should a circel be perfectly round, or not? Is perfection beauty? Or is it the human (inperfect) touch, that touches our heart?

[@Drawing-Life]

@@marcusdekker I like to see the choices that the artist makes in a drawing, so those include imperfections and so-called mistakes, I think it makes a drawing more than just a representation of the subject - it allows you to see the artists process. Perfection in art is so subjective - perfection can be related to the "look" ie a photo-realism (or a "perfect circle"), but also it can be perfect to represent something invisible, but clearly present in a figure, like energy and dynamic qualities. The good thing I guess is that there are as many forms of perfection as there are artists to express it!

[@yum6230]

hi Siobhan! I've been watching a few of your gesture drawing videos, which are super helpful! The only problem is I can't figure out where to start. like I don't know what shapes to put down and since I don't know where to start I'm getting frustrated. I see that you break yours down by torso but my torsos always look stiff.. will practice really improve the way my lines look? (ps. it's super hard since I'm such a perfectionist)

[@Drawing-Life]

Hi, oh great question ! It's always hard to know where to start, and especially if you feel you are a beginner, or starting out. I start with random lines! I just put lines on the page quickly, and another thing is that I look for the direction and draw a line of action, or anything really just to get some marks on the page and make it feel less intimidating than a clean blank page. For you, if you're not super comfortable making random marks, then.... When it comes to drawing the figure, if it's a standing figure then I would recommend loosely mapping the torso very lightly. And of course, I alway recommend just being as light as possible so that your first few marks will eventually fade, or not be noticeable, as you get more specific and draw darker marks. So, if you want to draw shapes, then try to draw very loose shapes, like ovals or circular shapes, but just make sure that you are drawing them very light, so that you can draw over them.Usually, for most people, the problem with drawing shapes first, especially if you don't have strong line confidence and ability, is that the shapes will dictate your drawing from the very first moment, and if they are wrong the drawing will be just really frustrating to work out. Whereas drawing light, and loose gesture lines is more like a continual process of finding the shapes and the structure, and it can change and morph, and can be a lot more creative and interesting to work out. Hope this answers your question! let me know if this helps you? (p.s. practice is ONLY going to improve the way your lines look!! :)

[@lola9148]

exactly what i needed to hear today! great lesson :)

[@Drawing-Life]

Hi Lola, I'm so glad to hear that!! thanks for watching :)

[@marcusdekker]

You have a dog with 2 differnt colored eyes, like Bowie. I used to have a dog like that as well, called Rastatoo ( he was the follow up of Rasta, a caribean dog, called thus, because he was black and beautifull)

[@Drawing-Life]

Aw thanks, yes my dog is Jessie, she's awesome - I sometimes joke that if she were a male dog we should have called her David Bow-wow-ie lol ! She get's lots of attention for her beautiful eyes, but she's also got an amazing personality! Dogs are the best, maybe you'll get a "RastaTree" sometime? :)

[@marcusdekker]

@@Drawing-Life Hihi. I would love to have a dog. I live in the Netherlands at the moment. It's a very crowded country. You must walk your dog with a leach and you need to have litle plastic bags with you, by wich you pick up the shit of your dog. Also work and a dog make it hard in this country......unfortuatly.....So you are in south africa, great, Cape area? I hope you have a great time!!!!

[@t-daze]

Is it possible to overcome lopsided vision? :/ Also, I tend to be so linear and struggle with volume. Great, intelligent videos. Thanks

[@Drawing-Life]

A linear approach doesn't have to result in flat drawings, you can definitely describe volume with simple line, and you don't have to rely on shading. I love the power of a line for that reason! :) thank you so much for watching ❤

[@beaver7020]

hi Siobhan I'm a South African living in cape town and I've been drawing for some time started when I was 13 and I'm 26 but I want to pursue my figure drawing and illustration path ... do you do any in person classes around cape town or have any recommendations 😊 please do let me know thanks

[@Drawing-Life]

Hi! great to hear from you, I don't have any in-person workshops coming up as I am going to Ireland for a couple of months and so will be away, but might look at doing a workshop in the Spring or summer. In the meantime I think the best place to check is at The Deckle Edge, they will for sure know of life drawing sessions. It's a great idea to go to regular life drawing classes and from there you will start to really build out your drawing practice. Let me know if you have any other questions!! 😀

[@beaver7020]

Will you be doing any workshops in cape town deckle edge in the new yearv2024

[@AdamDoesComics]

Is that a JLC reverso? If it is you have fantastically classy taste in watches

[@Drawing-Life]

Haha, I would love to say that it is, they are beautiful watches. This is my Dad's watch, a humble pulsar, but never let's me down, and i love the style. ❤

[@johnbowyer6902]

In a way, a gesture drawing is just a little more than a 'Stick Man' drawing that a child would do, but with varying thicknesses and tone of lines.

[@Drawing-Life]

I see it more as a dynamic response to the figure, not a drawing OF the figure. This response is expressed through lines or marks. It can be made in any kind of marks, not just lines. Line is how I draw, but others might draw with tones or shading. I also see it as a way to draw an energy or essence that goes beyond just the 2D visual aspect.