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About instructor
Educator, painter, writer, and art historian. Author of Figure Drawing: Design and Invention.
LESSON NOTES
What's in Premium?
In the full lesson, we break down the fundamentals of gesture drawing into three key components: understanding why we draw gestures, determining what we're drawing, and deciding how to achieve the desired look. We'll explore the importance of abstraction in conveying ideas, using simple lines and shapes like curves, straights, and basic forms to express complex concepts. You'll learn how elements like the line of beauty and rhythm enhance your drawings, and how shapes influence character perception in design. We'll also dive into capturing non-verbal communication and body language to tell a story through your figures. By understanding these concepts, you'll develop a personal and effective approach to gesture drawing.
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DOWNLOADS
how-to-think-about-gesture.mp4
863 MB
how-to-think-about-gesture-captions-english.txt
25 kB
how-to-think-about-gesture-captions-spanish.txt
28 kB
how-to-think-about-gesture-captions-english.srt
43 kB
how-to-think-about-gesture-captions-spanish.srt
45 kB
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Let's break down the nebulous concept of gesture—it's about conveying ideas and emotions through abstract lines and shapes in your drawings.
This was quite the insightful and coherent watch. The last portion of this lesson got me thinking, since we cannot "perfectly" copy our perceived reference line for line, then "gesture" must be the skilful ability to synthesise all those important or common ideas through "abstraction" or into its simplest forms. So it's really bridging our flawed minds/perception to reality.
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1mo
Exactly!
Great start! I love the focus on the idea. I am not drawing the "thing", but the idea, feeling, or story. I am about 25 years post college and that one sentence helps me focus back into the reason I started art.
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2mo
Awesome!
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5mo
Nice notes! We hope you have a great time with the rest of the course. Can't wait to see what you draw :)
Hi Hiiiii !!! Thank you so much Mr. Hampton I've learnt a lot ! this was my attempt when the course released, I've learnt alot about shapes and most importantly body language. The fact that mixing these shapes and playing around creates complex characters is sooo incredible to me. Thank you so much to our teacher and everyone else who's attempted this lesson.
I never really understood gesture and then I saw your video on youtube and it clicked. Just one free lesson early in the morning and I was able to do a few gesture drawings. So immediately subsribed to your course. Today was my first lesson. Thank you !
As someone who unfortunately never learned a lot of these concepts in an educational setting I can't tell you enough how much I enjoyed this lesson, so much that makes sense but I feel like I've never put those pieces of the puzzle together before. Really looking forward to learning more on this journey.
Wonderful lesson! By the way, I love little curiosities like the one about hands. That when a character raises their hands, it naturally draws more of our attention 😊
Great introduction and video/audio quality. I like the course is starting out with basic definitions and background information even based on deduction from other known artists.
Analysing the abstract shapes of popular arts really helps me to understand the psychological motivation.
Yet I am still wondering if this approach holds mostly true for modern productions (by e.g. Disney, Sony, etc.) or also for Fine Arts and old master techniques (such as David Kassan, Rembrandt, etc.)?
I hope to find out throughout the course and for the following the course to help me devlop a stronger foundation for live drawings of real humans.
All i gotta say is the constant blinking back and forth between zoom levels on the video whenever he's on camera, very distracting and annoying. Pick a zoom level and stick with it already, Proko :)
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8mo
My bad
I came here expecting to learn about the body. but learning so much about archetypes, story stereotypes and how sometime you can use shapes to break conventions in visual story is such a plus in this class already.
Your first lecture is a joy to watch. Impressive work. Congratulations Michael, it is already worthwile having purchased the course.
I am currently doing his head course and have his figure course in the queue (while doing Marshall’s perspective class) but every single notification I get about this is so enticing. XD I think I might cave and just get it even if I can’t do 3 at once efficiently.
Can't do this exercise too many times. Really excellent way of expressing the proportions of a figure. I tried to construct this step by step as I progressed through the lesson.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I'm so excited for this class! I didn't spot your head and figure construction courses until they were already over, but I am determined to do this one live. Gesture is an at times frustrating subject to me, but the way you break it down simplifies the complexity and emboldens me to push further.
Pencil on smooth newsprint. Took more than 10 hours to understand these simple patterns of design & complete 3 sketches correctly! I feel very good about completing this project & more confident about shape & structural support. Thanks, Michael.
I’m loving this course but legs are not right, and not sure what to do to fix them.
Watched the video last night. Really insightful first intro lesson Michael. I actually pretty much learned the basics from it on what to think about gesture drawing and how to approach it. I am looking forward to the upcoming lessons now. I also loved the in-depth of having us think why n how were doing it as well. Very fun things to take notes on.
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1yr
Glad to hear that!
the subtitles between 11:04 - 11:32 is empty, please have a fix.
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1yr
Sorry about that! I've sent out a fix request and hope it gets resolved tomorrow.
