Gesture and Proportion
1mo
Josh Post
I'm currently moving through the first few lessons in the gesture drawing course, and although I've done hundreds of gestures, I think my lack poor proportion skills are throwing me off big time. My stuff will come out so warped and distorted that it completely destroys the motion and energy of the gesture.
I understand basic sighting techniques, but I'm slow with them, making it difficult to utilize in timed gesture drawings. It's also incredibly difficult to utilize these techniques when drawing from a reference thats on my phone or a smaller screen. I have to be at least an arms length from the reference, and at that point, the image is so small that sighting is difficult.
It's not just the human form that I have issues with, my sense of proportion is terrible no matter the subject. Anyone have any tips, exercises, lessons, etc that can point me in the right direction?
Are you able to set up a second monitor or something similar so you don't have to look at something small? Also, when it comes to proportions, I think a key part of it is being able to recognize the spacial relationships between the line you're drawing versus other lines.
For example, you can compare one edge to another edge on the opposite side of the form you are drawing and think, "Okay, how much bigger does this look?" Mentally visualizing things into fractions like halves, thirds, and quarters can be very helpful!
Also, you don't have to just compare one edge to one other edge. You can compare to multiple edges and see if all the distances and angles match up. All of the lines are related to each other.
I was doing this a bit today, and I found it helpful. I found concentrating on negative shapes, along with vertical and horizontal alignment, helpful, as well.
It's funny how the brain works, especially with foreshortened objects. I can swear that two lines match, but if I place it over the reference, one leg is twice as long as the other lol.
