My first attempt at traditional timed figure and gesture drawing

Bobby Aquitania · 9 Feb 2016, 18:17

Edit: Sorry I wanted to add, don't get hung up on the study, and don't spend more than 3 minutes on it. The idea is to give yourself a larger work space, without having to do a complete drawing, and you're only working on ironing out the area you originally found hard to understand in the full gesture drawing.

If you found this was helpful, do studies on the other areas, then piece then together in your brain and do a full figure but again only 3 minutes. Because what you're trying to develop is the thought process you did to do both exercises as one exercise. What is a full figure but a series of connected studies, others simply work faster, more simpler than we do... I hope that helps.

Rich Green · 9 Feb 2016, 19:29

@Bobby-Aquitania Thanks so much for the nice and detailed write up - as well as the sample drawings Bobby. I will definitely work through some practice studies using this method you outlined and I also like the part about going back and doing a focus on the area I found the most challenging in the original attempt. I will be sure and post what I come up with!

Naroth Kean · 9 Feb 2016, 23:27

nice studies and progress

Rich Green · 10 Feb 2016, 00:14

@Naroth-Kean Thank you!

@Steff Thanks! You should definitely give it a try it's fun and is really helping me!

@Dulcie Thank you - I really appreciate the support!

Ace Connell · 10 Feb 2016, 16:46

I find that a lot of the time, instead of pushing a pose to add drama/force, people tend to not even push it to the point of even the real figure/photo and it ends up a little lifeless.

Ace

Rich Green · 10 Feb 2016, 17:19

@Ace-Connell - yes I know I am guilty of doing that and I have seen that in other work all over social media - the more I am becoming aware of what to look for and pick up on. One of the biggest things I have taken from the SVS courses and these forums - its to really be an observer of life, your surroundings, environment, objects, colors, lights etc, etc etc. I catch myself picking up on things I never would have paid attention to before - and more now than ever snapping a quick photo with my phone to capture a composition I find interesting in the real world, or a color of the way the sun hits a tree and snow around it, or a texture I think I may be able to use in the future and so on.

Ace Connell · 11 Feb 2016, 21:20

@Rich-Green I love that! That's awesome!

Bobby Aquitania · 12 Feb 2016, 08:34

@Rich-Green said:
I catch myself picking up on things I never would have paid attention to before - and more now than ever snapping a quick photo with my phone to capture a composition I find interesting in the real world, or a color of the way the sun hits a tree and snow around it, or a texture I think I may be able to use in the future and so on.

Congrats Rich, you have officially been hit by the art bug! When I finally made a break through in digital art, all I could see in people's faces were how I would draw them given the chance. And I couldn't turn it off no matter how I tried. I just kept noticing color palettes and highlights, and it was everywhere just like you describe it above.

I hope you always feel that way!

Rich Green · 20 Feb 2016, 15:33

Worked on another gesture practice. I can really tell I am still very stiff with those starting flowing straight lines and once that happens the entire image suffers from looking stiff.

But that is what is so great about this kind of practice is that I can now see this happening and the impact it is having and I have something I know I can work on.

For the 1.5 minute anatomy markers I also pulled in a bit of the volume markers per the other video classes from Will and Jake because I am also working on perspective practice a lot here as well.

After I was done I pulled this all into Photoshop so I could post here and in doing so I decided to trace the original photo's actual flowing lines and then I copied that over my various phases. My analytical brain loved this because I can see even more clearly where the lines should flow in comparison to what I had drawn. I found that quite helpful and it highlighted more bends and angles I do not think I picked up on in her torso. Really interesting to me.

MOO · 21 Feb 2016, 06:40

Thanks for sharing this! I think I'll go try it too