What You Need To Know About Gesture
What You Need To Know About Gesture
This lesson is premium only. Join us in the full course!
30:53

The Gesture Course

What You Need To Know About Gesture

540
Course In Progress

What You Need To Know About Gesture

540
Course In Progress
Michael Hampton
Learn to draw dynamic figures by focusing on movement and asymmetry. This lesson explores how to use offset curves and apexes to create rhythm in your drawings, making them more engaging.
Newest
Josh Fiddler
Some draw-alongs from the lesson.
@edsko
3d
Loving the course so far, even though it's definitely going to be challenging for a beginner like myself. There is something I don't understand. Perhaps I am falling into the trap of asking "what part is this", which you repeatedly have warned against :) But nonetheless.. I have attached a screenshot of the construction of the second pose; I am confused about the line that you describe as representing the thoracic spine. I just cannot relate the line you drew to the spine of the model, which from our viewing angle would seem to me to be nearly straight, certainly nowhere near as bent as you drew it. I am similarly puzzled by the line representing the spine in the other two poses, though it's not quite as pronounced as here, so I am definitely missing something. Either I am just completely wrong about where her spine would be, or I am misunderstanding what this line represents. Could you elaborate a bit? Thank you!
Michael Hampton
Ya, I get that it's confusing. Remember, I'm not connecting my lines to any one thing or element at this point. I'm primarily drawing rhythms abstracted from an understanding of the workings of the body. In the case above, I would never draw a straight line and would instead always choose to exaggerate. I see the model turned more three quarter so am visualizing the thoracic spine angled in that direction. Hope this helps some.
Ari a
3d
I'm so glad this came out today. Tmr is my birthday. I will use the upcoming year to practice a lot of figure drawing in hope that I can finally improve. <3 I love your videos so much.
Patrick Bosworth
Happy birthday, @Ari a! Looking forward to seeing your work!
Kimberly Lee-Lewis Adams
Happy birthday, @Ari a !
Michael Hampton
Happy birthday
Pär
3d
Really wan’t to break out of the ’draw as you see’ outline based way of drawing, otherwise having done a tone of life drawing. Also from time to time starting out with basic forms eggs/boxes/etc, but still feel to locked to more strictly copying the pose and appearance. But now while drawing along with the examples It feels exciting this way of thinking/working. Then trying out on new poses I realize it will take _some_ more practice and understanding though 😬😅 Really tricky with the hips/buttocks and with the leg connections. And got completely stuck on the legs on leftmost figure, going over and over making it worse with every attempt. But guessing I'm too much tied to the outlines, trying to distill and find the rytms from that. Well just to try again I guess, also really looking forward to upcoming lessons!
Pär
2d
And also need to rewatch this lesson. Realize I managed to drop almost every principle Michael brought up. And there also was this list for nr of lines for each part. 1 line for weight bearing side of the hip, 2-3 each leg and 16-17 for the whole body it's shown. Oh well...
Pootchky
4d
If you ever need a side hustle , podcasting would be your jam!!
Michael Hampton
Ha. What makes you say that? Because I never stop talking? 🤣
Full course
You will be given unexpiring access to watch the videos online .
View course details
Give a gift
Give a gift card for art students to use on anything in the Proko store.
Or gift this course:
About instructor
Educator, painter, writer, and art historian. Author of Figure Drawing: Design and Invention.
Help!
Browse the FAQs or our more detailed Documentation. If you still need help or to contact us for any reason, drop us a line and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible!