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Mimi T.
•
4yr
added comment inHow to Draw Gesture – Step by Step
Asked for help
I’d love some advice on how to improve my gesture drawings. It seems every time I do a gesture, I follow the contour of the body more so than motion. I also have trouble exaggerating the pose because I draw what I see and the poses often become stiff. Any tips or advice?
Nikki De Backer
4yr
Hi Mimi! I love your drawings! Dancers are super fun to draw.
If I have difficulty with a step in my learning process I often look back to the lesson before it.
I would suggest going back to the video “how to draw gesture” and try doing the gestures in one line like Stan does in the video. You can’t do a contour of the figure if you do it in one line so you will have to look at the figure in a very different way.
Personally I didn’t like doing just one line because in the end you just have a piece of paper with lines 😂 but it helped me so much for drawing gesture and it is a quick and easy exercise!
Hopes this might help you. Good luck!
Preston
4yr
Hi! I'm by no means an expert, but I'd like to try and help. First off, I really like these. Personally, I can 'feel' the gesture, but I can also see what you mean about your issue with following the contour.
For this I have two pieces of advice.
First, you should try limiting the amount of time you spend on gesture drawing. If you're achieving these drawings with a 30 second timer per pose then I would say give yourself even less time, 10 to 15 seconds, and do your best to get the essential lines needed to capture the gesture- even if the result looks like a stick man. You probably only need to go that quickly enough times to train your self to simplify what you see before returning to 30sec + poses. I think the best way to stop following contour to stop giving yourself enough to to think or overthink.
Second, I would advise watching this Proko video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j39NqwL7s4. It's a step-by-step video of Proko drawing gestures with explanation. What you want to do for each pose is:
Step 1. Pause the video and attempt the pose yourself.
Step 2. Resume the video and follow along with the example.
Step 3. Go back and attempt the pose a third time on your own.
Following this 3 step process when watching these examples really helped me see where I tended to make mistakes and overthink when drawing gestures.
Hope this can be of help to you! Good luck with your studies!
Mimi T.
•
4yr
Hi there! I’m beginner artist and WoC. Good idea starting this topic!
YAY!!! Hi Mimi! So nice to meet you! Thank you! Its through Proko that I learned the wide art industry is male dominated and I want to uplift and empower and connect as many of our WoC artists as much as I can! :)
