The 11 Steps to Great Gesture Drawing

Summary

This video script delves into the art of gesture drawing, emphasizing the importance of understanding and capturing the essential forms and movements of a figure. It outlines 11 key ingredients for successful gesture drawing, including recognizing anatomical landmarks, simplifying forms, maintaining intuitive proportions, and using specific line types. The script encourages artists to practice with a risk-taking mindset, build confidence, and develop a personal mark-making strategy. It also suggests a challenge for further improvement and community engagement.

Takeaways

• 🎨 **Importance of Fundamentals**: Even if you're missing one of the 11 ingredients for gesture drawing, it can significantly impact the outcome, emphasizing the importance of understanding the basics.
• 👀 **Landmarks and Relationships**: Recognizing key anatomical landmarks and their relationships is crucial for capturing the essence of a figure's gesture.
• 📏 **Understanding Big Forms**: Seeing the overall structure and form of the figure, such as the orientation of the ribcage and pelvis, is vital for dynamic gesture drawing.
• 🧍 **Proportions Matter**: While not needing to be perfectly accurate, maintaining intuitive proportions is essential to avoid distracting from the gesture.
• 🚫 **Limiting Marks**: Using a limited set of C-shaped, S-shaped curves, and straight lines (CSI) can help simplify the drawing process and focus on the essential aspects of gesture.
• ⏱️ **Time Constraints**: Implementing a time limit can encourage decisiveness and prevent getting lost in unnecessary details.
• 🔍 **Finding Asymmetry**: Asymmetry in a figure, like the contrast between squashed and stretched sides, adds visual interest and dynamism to gesture drawings.
• 🌊 **Standard and Pose-Specific Curves**: Utilizing both standard curves that are generally expected and pose-specific curves that capture the unique aspects of a pose.
• 🏞️ **Surface Lines**: Employing surface lines, cross contour lines, or wrapping lines can add gesture and clarify forms, especially in foreshortened views.
• ✏️ **Mark Making Strategy**: Having a personalized mark-making strategy, such as the type of grip or pencil used, can greatly influence the effectiveness of capturing gesture.
• 🧗 **Risk Mindset**: Embracing a risk-taking mindset, similar to Indiana Jones stepping out onto an unseen path, encourages boldness and confidence in each mark made.
• 💪 **Quantity of Practice**: Recognizing that gesture drawing is a skill built through consistent practice and muscle memory, not just theoretical knowledge.
• 🌟 **Confidence**: Allowing oneself to be confident in their abilities, which is built through practice and understanding, is a key ingredient in creating compelling gesture drawings.

Q & A

What is the significance of having 11 ingredients for gesture drawing as mentioned in the script?

The 11 ingredients represent key elements that contribute to successful gesture drawings. Even missing one can significantly affect the outcome, emphasizing the importance of each aspect in capturing the essence of a figure's movement and form.

Why are important landmarks crucial in gesture drawing according to the script?

Important landmarks, such as the ASIS points and the sternum, are crucial because they help simplify the complex details of a figure into a few key points, allowing the artist to focus on the major forms and relationships, which is central to capturing the gesture.

How does understanding the big forms aid in gesture drawing?

Understanding the big forms, such as the orientation of the rib cage and pelvis, helps in gesture drawing by providing a clear sense of the figure's major anatomical structures and their spatial relationships, which is essential for conveying movement and posture.

What is the role of intuitive proportions in creating effective gesture drawings?

Intuitive proportions play a role in gesture drawing by ensuring that the parts of the figure are relatively accurate to each other, avoiding significant distortions that could distract from the overall gesture. It's about being 'wrong in the right direction' rather than being precisely accurate.

Why is limiting the types of marks to CSI (c-shaped curves, s-shaped curves, and straight lines) beneficial?

Limiting marks to CSI encourages artists to draw through irrelevant details and focus on the essential forms and movements. This simplification helps in capturing the gesture more effectively by emphasizing the dynamic aspects of the pose.

How does a time limit impact the process of creating gesture drawings?

A time limit forces artists to be decisive and not get lost in details, which is crucial for gesture drawing. It's not about rushing but about slowing down and making fewer, more purposeful marks that capture the essence of the gesture.

What does the script suggest about finding asymmetry in gesture drawings?

The script suggests that asymmetry, such as the tension between the squash and stretch sides of the torso or the contrast between straight lines and curves, adds visual interest and dynamism to gesture drawings, making them more gestural and less static.

How do pre-prepared and pose-specific curves contribute to gesture drawing?

Pre-prepared curves provide a foundation that the artist can rely on, while pose-specific curves add unique details that are created by the particular pose, enhancing the gesture drawing by combining the expected with the unexpected.

What is the importance of surface lines, cross contour lines, or wrapping lines in gesture drawing?

Surface lines, cross contour lines, or wrapping lines are important as they provide a way to maintain long, gestural curves even in foreshortened forms. They help clarify the form's direction and add to the dynamism of the gesture.

What role does mark making strategy play in gesture drawing?

A mark making strategy, such as the type of grip or tool used, influences the variety and quality of marks an artist can make, which in turn affects the ability to capture the gesture effectively. It's one of the many tools an artist can use to enhance their gesture drawings.

Why is a risk mindset important when doing gesture drawings?

A risk mindset is important because it encourages artists to make bold, confident marks without fear of failure. This confidence translates into the drawing, allowing for more dynamic and expressive gesture drawings.

What does the script suggest about the importance of practice in developing gesture drawing skills?

The script emphasizes that understanding the theory is not enough; a sheer quantity of practice is necessary to build muscle memory and integrate the various ingredients of gesture drawing into one's skillset.

How does confidence play a role in creating effective gesture drawings?

Confidence is crucial as it allows the artist to make bold, assured marks that convey a sense of certainty and mastery. This confidence in one's abilities enhances the gesture drawing and makes it more engaging for the viewer.

Outlines

00:00

🎨 Understanding the Essentials of Gesture Drawing

The paragraph discusses the importance of 11 key ingredients in gesture drawing, emphasizing that even missing one can significantly impact the outcome. It stresses that while one doesn't need to be perfect, having a basic understanding of each is crucial. The first ingredient is recognizing and understanding the figure's important landmarks, which helps in simplifying the complex details into a few key points. The second ingredient involves comprehending the big forms and their orientation, which is facilitated by identifying the landmarks. The paragraph also touches on the idea that clarity in seeing structure and forms can enhance the dynamism of gesture drawings, contrary to the common belief that it makes them stiff.

05:04

🧍‍♂️ Mastering Proportions and Simplicity in Gesture

This section delves into the third ingredient, intuitive proportions, which advises against striving for perfect accuracy but rather maintaining a balance to avoid distracting from the gesture. It warns against common mistakes like elongating the midsection or misjudging the size of the head and legs. The fourth ingredient introduces the concept of using C-shaped curves, S-shaped curves, and straight lines (CSI) to simplify marks and encourage drawing through irrelevant details. The speaker suggests a limit on the number of marks and the use of time limits to enhance decisiveness and avoid detail overload.

10:05

🕒 Embracing Asymmetry and Strategic Mark Making

Paragraph 2 continues with the fifth ingredient, finding asymmetry, which is crucial for creating visual interest and gesture in drawings. It contrasts symmetrical forms with more dynamic asymmetrical ones. The sixth ingredient is about using standard pre-prepared curves and pose-specific curves to enhance the gesture. The seventh ingredient discusses the use of surface lines, cross contour lines, or wrapping lines to capture the gesture while clarifying forms. The eighth ingredient focuses on developing a mark-making strategy, such as using an overhand grip and a specific type of pencil, to effectively capture gesture. The paragraph encourages mimicking the strategies of admired artists to find one's own style.

Keywords

💡Gesture

Gesture refers to the flow and movement within a figure drawing. It is not just about replicating anatomical details but capturing the overall motion and energy of the figure. In the video, gesture is described as a foundational element of figure drawing, focusing on the big flowing curves and simplicity, which make the figure more dynamic and alive.

💡Landmarks

Landmarks in figure drawing are the key points on the body that help guide proportions and positioning. These include bony structures like the ASUS points on the pelvis, the sternum, and the brow line. Recognizing these landmarks allows the artist to accurately map out the figure's structure and movement, simplifying the drawing process.

💡Squash and Stretch

Squash and stretch are principles used to show how different parts of the body compress or elongate depending on the figure’s position. In the video, squash refers to areas where the figure is compressed, while stretch refers to areas that are extended. Capturing these contrasts adds dynamism to the figure and is crucial for achieving a sense of movement.

💡Intuitive Proportions

Intuitive proportions refer to the artist's ability to estimate the relative sizes of different parts of the body without precise measurements. In the video, it's emphasized that proportions don’t need to be perfect but should be close enough to not distract from the overall gesture. For example, making the legs too short or the head too large can undermine the flow of the gesture.

💡CSI Marks

CSI marks are simplified shapes consisting of C-curves, S-curves, and straight lines used to capture the essence of the figure. These marks help artists focus on the most important aspects of the pose without getting bogged down by details. The video suggests using a limited number of these marks to encourage clarity and efficiency in gesture drawing.

💡Asymmetry

Asymmetry in figure drawing refers to the natural imbalance between different sides of the body or pose. This imbalance creates visual interest and dynamism. In the video, the concept is applied by contrasting the stretched and squashed sides of the body, or by using straight lines on one side and curves on the other to highlight the figure's tension and fluidity.

💡Cross Contour Lines

Cross contour lines, also called surface lines, are lines that wrap around the form of the body, helping to show its volume and direction. These lines add depth to the drawing, especially in areas that are foreshortened, and guide the viewer in understanding the three-dimensional aspects of the figure. They also enhance the gesture by clarifying the direction of movement.

💡Mark Making Strategy

Mark making strategy refers to the artist’s technique in applying lines to the paper. The video describes using an overhand grip on the pencil and limiting marks to those that are deliberate and purposeful. The strategy affects how the gesture is captured, with different materials and grips producing varied results. Mimicking the techniques of artists with strong gesture work is recommended.

💡Risk Mindset

The risk mindset involves being willing to make bold, confident strokes without worrying about failure. In the video, this mindset is likened to taking a leap of faith, as seen in the Indiana Jones reference. The idea is that without taking risks in your drawing, you may hold back, resulting in stiffer, less dynamic figures. Artists are encouraged to embrace mistakes as part of the learning process.

💡Quantity of Practice

Quantity of practice emphasizes the importance of repetition in improving gesture drawing skills. The video stresses that while understanding the theory is important, mastering gesture drawing requires consistent and frequent practice to build muscle memory. This ongoing practice helps artists internalize key concepts like proportions, anatomy, and dynamism over time.

Highlights

Having 10 out of 11 ingredients is considered good, but in figure drawing, missing one can significantly impact the outcome.

You don't need to be perfect in all 11 aspects; having a basic understanding of each is sufficient.

The first ingredient is recognizing the important landmarks of the figure for a clear understanding of the structure.

The second ingredient involves understanding the big forms of the figure, such as the orientation of the rib cage and pelvis.

A clear understanding of structure can lead to more dynamic figure drawings, contrary to the common belief that it makes them stiff.

The third ingredient is intuitive proportions, where accuracy is less critical than maintaining a balance that supports the gesture.

CSI (c-shaped curves, s-shaped curves, and straight lines) is suggested as a guideline for simplifying marks in gesture drawing.

Limiting the number of marks or the types of marks used can encourage focusing on essential details.

A time limit can enforce decisiveness and prevent getting lost in irrelevant details.

Finding asymmetry in the figure, such as squash and stretch, is crucial for capturing the gesture.

Pre-prepared curves and pose-specific curves are important for capturing the gesture of a pose.

Surface lines, cross contour lines, or wrapping lines can provide gesture while clarifying forms.

A mark-making strategy, such as using an overhand grip and a specific type of pencil, can aid in capturing gesture.

A risk mindset, embracing the possibility of failure, is essential for making bold gestural marks.

Quantity of practice is necessary for developing muscle memory and improving gesture drawing skills.

Allowing oneself to be confident in one's abilities is the 11th ingredient, which is built through practice and self-belief.

The Fresh Eyes Challenge is designed to help artists improve their skills in capturing gesture and form.

Transcripts

So today I have 11 ingredients for you for  gesture and normally, let's say  

you have 10 out of 11. that's pretty good. That's like about 90% or so. Normally  

when you're 90% of the way there with something  you can really see it, like, you're getting close.

In figure drawing, with these 11  ingredients, if you're missing one, the drawing 

still might not look the way you want them to. They  might look far from how you want them to look but  

the good news is you don't need to be really  advanced or perfect on all of these 11 things.

You just need to have something in place for  each of them.

The first two ingredients should sound pretty familiar if you saw our last video  but it bears going over quickly one more time.  

Gesture isn't just in my opinion about big  flowing curves that you just feel without  

any sense of what's going on in the structure. So the first ingredient is having an idea  

of what the important landmarks of the figure are  and then being able to see where they are and see  

how they relate to each other, because  otherwise you're just getting infinite  

photons of light coming off this figure  into your eyes - so much detail, so much information...

It's so much more straightforward and simple when  you can boil it down to a few important points and  

one characteristic of gesture is that simplicity  and clarity. So important landmarks like the ASUS points,

the bony points on the front of the pelvis, the sternum - how far down is that ribcage coming 

like in the last video we talked about, those collar bones, for the head you can look at the  

brow line, how it relates to the top of the ear  and get a sense of that cranium and whether it's  

tilted back or tilted forward and stuff like that. Once you notice these fundamental ideas  

you can start to get a sense of the major forms  in the figure. How is the rib cage oriented?

So this is the second ingredient, is understanding  the big forms and that is helped when you can see  

the landmarks, which is that first ingredient, so  then when you can see that rib cage and pelvis  

you can see, oh this side's all squashed up, there's  a fold here, this side is all stretched out,   

the head is on this angle, and so I'm going to draw  the head off on that angle. And when you don't  

get these ideas, when you don't see the squash and  stretch clearly, when you don't get the head on its  

angle correctly, things easily get straightened  out and so actually I think when you have this  

kind of clarity, when you see the structure and the forms, you can make your figures more dynamic.  

Often you think it makes things stiff. I think if  you see with that clarity, you can get those angles  

and that tension between the squashing side and  the stretching side and you can add more dynamism.  

Now I'm not saying that a gesture drawing  should be like an anatomy study where you're  

really painstakingly mapping out all the  little anatomical things that's happening but an  

intuitive sense of the major anatomical forms and  how they relate is central to the gesture drawing.  

Now the third ingredient is about   intuitive proportions. So you don't need to

map things out painstakingly and get things super  accurate. But the thing is, if things are really  

way off, if they're way out of proportion, it's  going to distract from the gesture or dilute the  

gesture. So for example, often people make  that midsection between the rib cage and pelvis  

too long and I talked about the importance of the  squash and stretch. If you make that too long, the  

squash side is less squashed because it's  just been stretched out on the squash side and  

that dilutes that tension between the squash side  and the stretch side of the torso. Another thing  

is, very often people will make their head a bit  big, make their hips and legs too small, and that  

seems to undermine the gesture.   You don't need to be accurate, you just need to be  

wrong in the right direction. So what you can do is  go for a head that's roughly about the right size  

or a bit small but not too big. For legs that are  roughly the right length or a bit long but not too  

short, and even though you can go a little bit long  don't go super long because then it's just going  

to be distracting. So there's definitely a range of  error you can be in there but you don't want to be  

getting things too short in the legs or too big  in the head and you don't want to go way outside of that range. 

So the next thing is CSI. Not that one. This one. Just c-shaped curves, s-shaped curves  

and straight lines. Now, this isn't a rule. None of these are rules. I'm making this sound  

like a bunch of rules but it's not about rules,   it's about guidelines, because gesture is hard  

to get to and so it's nice to have some specific  steps to get there. And so one really nice idea  

is this limiting your marks to c-shaped curves,  s-shaped curves and straight lines. It means the  

most complex mark you're ever going to put down  is an s-shaped curve. It will encourage you to  

draw straight through irrelevant details and it's  really hard to let go of those details but when  

you can only use CSI marks, that helps. Now, what  you don't want to do is use a million CSI marks,  

you want to use maybe, I don't know, 15 up to 30 CSI  marks. These are numbers that you don't need  

to kind of really restrict yourself to but I feel  like that is a really nice exercise actually, when  

you say, I'm going to use max 12 lines, for example. That is really going to push you to draw through  

irrelevant information and find the things that  really matter. I tend to find that for a lot of  

the gesture drawings I do, there might be like 30  marks on them. One other tool aside from limiting  

how many marks or the types of marks you use  is a time limit. So that is going to make sure  

that you're decisive and that you're not getting  lost in detail as you're doing these drawings.

Now I think often people misuse these by putting a  time limit on and then panicking and just trying  

to rush through it and put as many marks down as  possible, ttrying to basically draw in their normal  

way but quicker. When you have a time limit, you need to slow down and draw less. That's  

your only hope. So, if you have two minutes, say,  but you're only going to make 30 marks, that's  

four seconds (the maths is still there) per mark  so that's plenty of time to make all the marks  

you need for your drawing. Even if you have one  minute, you've got two seconds per mark. That's a leisurely pace.

The fifth ingredient is finding asymmetry. So a lot of what makes gesture is the  

relationship between the two sides of the forms  so, like the squash and stretch in the torso, it's  

that tension between the nice stretched out  smoother side and then the sharp angle change  

on the squash side. And those two sides play off  against each other and it creates a lot of visual  

interest. If they were symmetrical it would be  way less gestural. Another nice relationship  

between the two sides is a straight line against  the curve. There's this real simplicity and  

kind of clarity of the straight line and then more  fluidity on the curved side. Another really nice  

form of asymmetry is offset curves. So symmetrical  curves are not good, but when you have those curves  

offset against each other, they create a really  nice asymmetrical dynamic.

So the sixth ingredient is to have some standard pre-prepared curves and  then some post-specific curves. So the standard  

pre-prepared ones are like, you know they're going  to be there, so they give you a head start. You see  

a straight leg from the side, you're naturally  going to find that s-shaped curve down the front  

of it. If you see a straight leg from the front  you're going to find offset curves going down  

the sides of it. And then you can add pose-specific curves, like big flowing curves that happen to be created by that pose

So the seventh ingredient  is surface lines, cross contour lines or wrapping lines.

Often a gestural curve is a big long  curve, so when you have an arm, you might  

have a big long curve to capture the gesture of  that arm, when something is really foreshortened,   

the edges on the outline of it become short - it's all foreshortened - and so it's not a nice big  

long line anymore, but we can find a big long curve  now wrapping around the form. That becomes the long  

curve. So you can still put those lines down around  the outline of the form but now you can add those  

big surface lines, those cross contour lines, and they're going to provide a lot of gesture  

while also clarifying the forms. Another really  nice thing is they tell us the direction,

they tell us how that form is coming towards us, and changing directions is part of the dynamism  of the pose and therefore of the gesture.

So the eighth ingredient is a mark making strategy

I think that a lot of people think that this is  all they need when they see someone doing  

the gestural drawings, it must just be all about  this, but this is just one out of the 11.

But it is important. So for me, my mark making  strategy for most of my gestural drawings is  

to use an over hand grip, use a pencil that is  sharpened to have quite a long bit of the lead  

exposed with a little bit of a tapering to it and  then use smooth newsprint and then I can put down  

all kinds of different marks that way and that  helps me to capture the gesture the way I want to.

That is one of many mark making strategies. You can use a brush pen, you can use all kinds  

of different materials and stuff like that, but  it's good to basically find the gesture drawings  

that you love the most, they could be digital, they  could be with brush, they could be with whatever.

Find the artist whose gesture drawings you really  love and just start off by matching their strategy.

What kind of grip do they use? How do they get the pencil ready? What kind of brush pen or  whatever they're using? And mimic that.

So the ninth ingredient is the risk mindset. Now, my head always  

goes to this scene from Indiana Jones. He can't  see where the line is, can't see where the path is.

He's got to just step out onto it and hope  that it's there. Now, Indiana Jones could have  

fallen down there. There might not have been a path  there, and that's going to happen when you're  

doing your gesture drawings. Fortunately you're not  going to die, so it's okay! Just keep taking  

that step that Indiana Jones takes with every  mark. Don't be like, oh my god, this has to be safe,

this has to be okay, the drawing has to not fail here. You're not gonna fall down into an endless  

pit. It's just going to be, oh I just do another  drawing, it's okay. So take that risk with every  mark.

Do it like you're confident about it. Do it  like you mean it even though you're not actually sure it's going to work.

Now the 10th ingredient is a sheer quantity of practice.

You can understand all of these ideas but don't expect yourself to sit down on day one or day two or day three and  

just be able to push out a bunch of fantastic  gesture drawings. It is a muscle memory thing.

So you can understand the theory at the end  of this video, but it's going to take a long time  

to get to those gestural drawings and hopefully  with this video you've understood that actually  

it's built on some anatomical know-how, it's built  on some ability with simple forms, there's a lot  

to it, you need to have a good intuitive sense  of proportions. And all of these things take time

to build. You're putting these  bricks in place, brick by brick, and you need to  

build that wall quite a bit before it's going to  really translate into fantastic gesture drawings.

So you've got to give yourself that time, give  yourself time to make lots of failed drawings  

as long as you're working on these ideas and on  these skills and not just mindlessly  

drawing inside your comfort zone, but really trying  to push towards building these 11 ingredients,   

building ingredients? The analogy has completely fallen apart! But you know what I mean. This takes  time, so give yourself that quantity of practice 

So the 11th secret ingredient is a bit vague but  

I think it's really important. It's to allow yourself  to be confident. If you've done that quantity of  

practice, if you've worked on all of these skills, at some point you're going to have to think to  

yourself, you know what? I am good at this, I can  do this, I'm confident about what I'm doing. That  

confidence is really useful when you're putting  down these gestural marks but you have to allow  

yourself to believe that. If you've done all  these other bits of work that I've described, you  

then have to allow yourself to be confident. Now, we as artists are often so self-critical and we  

don't want to be arrogant or whatever. We don't  want to seem delusional, we don't want to appear  

like we think we're good at stuff, so we'll  be really self-critical and self-deprecating.   

But to get those beautiful gestural  curves requires you to think, you know what?  

I know what I'm doing here and I'm awesome at this  and I can do this. It makes a huge difference and  

when you have that confidence, the marks have that  confidence and then the viewer's eyes are going to  

enjoy that confidence. It's strange  but it is an ingredient all by itself and it is  

built by doing the work and doing the practice. It's not just based on nothing, but you also have  

to take that step of actually giving yourself  that confidence. So if you really want to work  

on your skills of bringing things down to their  fundamental forms, seeing that squash and stretch  

intuitively, simplifying while still recognizing  that structure, bringing out those surface lines  

we designed the fresh eyes challenge specifically  for that. So it's 10 days and it is transformative  

for your drawings if you work through it. Now  I'm going to run that challenge in January live  

so we can do it together. We'll do new live  streams for it, got some new poses to do it  

so even if you've already done it, it's worth  revisiting and we're going to go through it  

all together in January. So if you want to join  in with that, make sure you're signed up to our  

community. It's free to join. The fresh eyes  challenge is in there. And make sure you're  

on our newsletter and that way I'll give you all the links and the information  

and stuff and we can go through this challenge  together. It's going to be really really great  

way to start off the new year. If you want to  learn more about gesture drawing, check out  

the video on the screen. It'll give you all  the things you need to look for in any pose