Like I'm not going to ever take my drawings over to my mom and say like,
mom, look at my drawings.
She'd be like, you idiot, that doesn't look like the model.
So in this section, we're now going to start working our way towards actually
making the drawings.
Step three for me is figures always feel the most convincing to me when they
exhibit a type of movement.
So I want to choose a technique or an approach that says all of the things or
that gathers up all of the different concerns that I've had so far or the
things that I've learned in my breakdown of the eight parts, but also carry with
it a sense of motion.
I'm sure you can already imagine that what I'm moving towards is this
principle, right?
That principle of asymmetry.
For any number of reasons, right?
I've shown you some other artists, how prevalent throughout our history,
interest in rhythm, curve and the movement of line is.
What I've drawn here in terms of the body kind of seems to sink what's already
happening due to the influence of the spine.
How it's also prevalent on the contouring of the arm.
But again, if we just go back to, you know, the appreciation of abstraction,
when I choose my technique, if I say weight and balance, you know, some kind
of dynamic engagement of story, movement, asymmetry is just a fantastic choice.
The way that I'm thinking of this working for my drawing is that anytime I have a
curve
With its apex offset to a curve below, that has its apex slightly shifted, you
create a natural interest in the viewer's attention that's very different than what
I almost always see people making gesture drawings do.
I'm not at all frustrated with that or it's not bad because I can empathize.
This was my biggest challenge in drawing.
I collected comics as a kid and all I wanted to do was draw the image in the
comic as well as what I saw.
Intuitively,
What made sense was that I would just go through the outside and draw the same
thing.
Inevitably, I ended up with this and my best guess at why is that when we start
drawing intuitively, we're concerned with capturing the shape, right?
Capturing, reproducing and replicating that shape onto our page so that we can
do the fun thing which is render armor or whatever.
So, in doing that, if I'm capturing a shape, what am I looking at?
I'm looking at one part
of one thing completely isolated from every other part and I think our brains
naturally want things to balance.
So, even if I'm not conscious of it, I move this line and then I replicate it
there.
What it does visually is anytime we parallel form, it creates closure.
So, by isolating or kind of bracketing those parentheses, what you're telling
the brain is that there's a complete shape that doesn't really seem to carry
over any of the principles that we looked at in the eight parts that have a sense
of naturalism and figures.
So, instead, I try to consciously do the opposite.
Again, go back to that common question.
What is it that you're drawing?
Is that the outside of the leg or the back of the leg?
It's never any of it.
It's an idea about its position but primarily, the idea is asymmetry for the
creation of rhythm.
So, now we can start to think about rhythm.
Loomis says something about rhythm, everybody has something different to say
about rhythm.
Mine's going to be more specific.
Every line is going to represent a part.
So, it's the spacing in between
represents the joint the transition between parts that's the most developed
connection that I'm making it's not the front it's not the back it's not the
contour every line equals the simplified abstracted idea of the part and I mostly
focused on the creation of movement through that offset relationship of apex
so that I can create an experience right and maybe that experience flows into the
You know, the leg and down into the foot.
So, if you find this to be at first difficult, it's not a bad idea in your
sketchbook like to just do pages where you would warm up playing with asymmetry.
Just kind of have fun, you know, focusing on the most important quality to this
which is just can you engage the eye with like long maybe like wandering pathways
on a page and maybe these rhythms kind of go on top of each other.
But really all you're trying to get the habit of is, you know, creating this link
because I do want there to be a certain degree of hand holding or chaining
between these.
Notice the difference if I were to do the same curves but pull them out a little
bit.
Doesn't that feel like there's a lack of rhythm or there's a slight drop off of
rhythm?
That's asking the viewer too much.
Sometimes I think you could still use curves but if they're not related, it
still feels to be somewhat disconnected or with less rhythm.
So something like this can allow you just to put the emphasis on the technique or
the how without needing it to be a thing.
So this will be the how.
As I go through the drawings that we'll be making next, as I go through I'm only
going to be using a straight
A C and an S curve and they could be of any kind of variation.
This could be an S. A C could look like that.
You don't have to make them, you know, look like the alphabet.
The only thing that I would say is specific about some of these lines is I
do try to introduce a bit of economy with the line use.
For example, straights aren't great for rhythm so I mostly keep these for areas
of weight or sometimes bone.
But they're very rare I would say.
The majority of what I'll be doing is using the C and the S. You've already
heard me discuss the importance and the use of asymmetry.
That's going to be my primary way of making drawings.
But you'll also see or gesture drawings that I'm going to introduce some wrapping
lines.
And so you could call these wrapping lines or perhaps they're more familiar as
contouring or surfacing lines or cross contours.
It's all notational.
Right, this is all just for me or you, nobody will see this.
So, it's what I need.
The last thing on this list just FYI was proportion.
I usually put it last because I don't want you to be hyper focused on getting
the size right when maybe you should be more focused on story.
Okay, so let's do some examples.
So, I have some nice images that we could work from down here.
I like to start with the head.
You don't have to start with the head but for me, the head is this great
opportunity to begin it with a natural focal point.
So, if I'm describing rhythms and curves and movements, the head is a natural way
to start the viewer's journey through that.
I'll then move through the spine.
I do this with four lines.
From there, I'm going to move into the weight-bearing side of the pelvis and
this usually gets one line.
Then into from the weight-bearing side of the pelvis if possible, the
weight-bearing leg.
And each limb for me is about two to three lines.
From there I then like to work on supporting legs so that I'm consciously
making a different emphasis on where weight is in a body.
And then they're into the arms.
So, that'd be the same, two to three.
So, in total, like if you feel lost or confused with your gesture, I mean,
again, I don't do math well but 16 to 17 lines thereabouts is what my gestures
are.
I'm using 16 to 17 lines or thereabouts to put it in to get the gesture down.
So, you feel like I'm not like it's not making sense, just bring your attention
back to that and see if that will help and give you a better shot at matching up
to what I'm doing.
You can reorganize this.
I've studied with tons of people that think doing the head first is the worst
possible thing you could do, right?
Because the gesture is in the body and the head is an afterthought.
So, everybody will say something different.
Every gesture process is unique to the person that's using it.
I think you should have a couple and each should be a different tool to allow you
to get what you want out of an image.
So, take what I've shown you, what I've introduced and then reorganize it however
you like.
So, let's do this.
Over here and I'm just going to try to explain why I'm making the decisions I
am.
So, first I'm going to start with the head.
Head is going to be a ball, simple shape for now.
It'll be the only shape at this stage of the drawing and then from here I'm going
to start to work into the spine.
So, what's really useful is to start to think about how the spine is moving
through a body.
If I'm not analyzing the spine, I know what
My default would be, I would start to look at the outside but that gives a
totally contrary idea of what we just went through as being important to the
figure.
That's not energetic, that's symmetrical, it's stiff, it's not truthful to what's
actually happening.
So, instead of that, I'm not looking at the outside, I'm drawing my
understanding, I'm drawing the idea, I'm trying to connect with the technique.
So here, what would the spine be doing if we just kind of looked at that for a
second?
If we just look at the big spatial directions, even though the head is
turned, the spine would still be pushing the neck forward and then from there, the
thoracic spine would be going back and then forward this way.
And that would explain why I'm seeing the thoracic arch pushing against the skin
and that half tone creating that plane change underneath the breast.
That's the rib cage as a whole or as a mass being forced forward.
That's me thinking about the side view proportion chart that we made.
So, neck is doing that, the head is turning off it, spine is this kind of big
C curve and then I can see the tilt of the pelvis doing that.
Look at that belly button, more vertical.
Here's the lumbar.
So, my lumbar will be going this way.
So, when I'm approaching a gesture drawing, this is what I'm thinking, this
is what I'm drawing.
I'm trying to understand the inside in order to make the drawing.
The outside can be useful clues to that but I'm not drawing the outside.
So, when I make this drawing, what would I say earlier?
So, my view is one line per part.
So, every line is a simplification of a part and then they hand hold in a space
that is the joint.
So, I'm going to say the neck goes this way.
Aim to make these central to forms.
Are they always central to forms?
No.
Does that mean that it's the outside of the neck?
No.
It's just the under structure.
So there's my spine.
Notice how that is an echo of that.
Direction, thoracic goes this way.
So I'm starting to pick up on that movement of the body forward there, just
like I showed you in that little spine diagram.
So I've done two so far, thoracic.
I like to add a third one, which would not be the spine, but instead is the
stretching of the front of the body.
So especially if we're standing, you get this beautiful counter curve from the
taller curvature of the back.
To the lower pitch or peak of that curve to the stretch.
So thoracic stretch lumbar
Step two is done.
My steps here are for me because I screw things up all the time.
So, I can double check, I can go back, it's like, oh, where does this look stiff
and why?
Like, is it the spine?
How are my four lines, you know, working?
Did I get them to feel about asymmetry?
So, that's done.
Pelvis, where's the weight bearing side?
Well, I'm always looking for the high side.
So, I usually start with the weight because I have the expectation that,
right, if we put weight on one side of our pelvis, if it's
Here is symmetrical.
If I start to put weight on one side, it shifts it up and that's a great way to
look for kind of catching that imbalance or that asymmetry of curve.
It's not always the case though.
Like here, it looks to me more like that high curve is here because even though
there's a weight on this hip, this feels shifted.
So, I'm going to do that.
But again, there's no right or wrong answer.
The only thing that matters to me at this point is that I've kept rhythm with every
curve.
So, check that off the list and then maybe I'll go into this leg now.
So, how would I move and maintain rhythm from that hip into the femur?
Same thing, that's the part of the femur.
Is that the outside of the femur or the hip?
I'm not even going to answer it, right?
We know there's no outside drawings here.
So, femur goes this way.
So, bent leg.
When I have a bent leg, that's when I'd get closer to the three lines because I
do one for the femur, maybe like a little transition line for the knee or the elbow
and then down and into my lower leg.
So, another thing, notice that it's not important to me that every line is
precise the minute I put it down.
I'm uptight but I'm not that uptight.
So, I like to kind of I'll do some ghosting, right?
I'll do a few lines and then kind of settle in on the one I like.
It doesn't matter, like I don't have a belief that your drawing needs to produce
the product view of the image that you have in your mind immediately.
That's amazing but it's not really how I think of gesture.
Now, we find ourself at the foot.
So, let's say a few things about the foot.
So, the basic idea of the foot is a triangle.
I think it's a good shape, right?
It's a good shape because we want to have some kind of stability in contact with
the ground.
So, I always try to keep this with some type of movement or dynamism to it.
So, let's talk about some different views and then we'll jump back into this.
I can't have floating figures without feet.
So, this is front.
If I want to do something three quarter for a foot, I'm going to take this part
and move it over.
In the process of moving it over, I see more of the side.
So that would be the outside.
This might be the front to the big toe.
And then I always try to pick up on one of these rhythms and let that flow into
the top of the foot.
So that would look like this.
So it's like you have a really dynamic sock.
So that's front.
This is three quarter.
What would profile be?
Profile might be the same shape without the front.
So now I just have this.
In anatomy terms, this would be the tendon ramp of the extensors moving into
the front part of the foot.
It's not a total abstraction to see that.
That would be side, back, maybe back I could use the same shape as like a
three-quarter, same principle but make this straight across the heel.
So, our dynamic sock looks like this and then so, if I see a pose like this, this
challenging pose where the foot is up and arched, I know that this is the model I
want, it's three-quarter and then I'll see if I can advance that gesture.
So, this is three-quarter but the foot there would be doing
So here's the curve, that kind of tendon ramp experience from the front.
Same principle, but this is where it's making contact with the ground.
So I'm just gonna push this out.
So I'm bending it basically.
Here, ground, then down.
This is an S curve.
Because that's stretching and then I'm back up and in.
So, all I did was pinch and stretch my sock.
I know this is closer to shape, right?
But I'm not closing off the top, like I'm not actually making it a sock.
It's just a way for me to put the figure in contact with some type of ground
plane.
Let's do the supporting leg.
So, maybe on this side, I'll try to give a different experience.
So, this side is all C curve.
You notice that?
The shorter C-curves?
I always find that to be consisted with pinched sides of the body or
weight-bearing sides of the body.
The other side of the body, maybe I'll try something different.
Maybe let's play around with a longer relational line.
Maybe I'll make a longer gesture like this.
What about one long S-curve there?
That still does what I want, it still brings the eye with asymmetrical
relationships from top down to ground but it gives a different experience to the
other side.
So, this is pinched, this feels more passive or stretched.
What do we have for our foot?
We have this one but maybe a little bit, maybe kind of that one but flirting
towards three-quarter.
Here's where that would be and then down.
So, this gives me the most important thing for my gesture, head to foot,
right?
I've composed the reed of the viewer to move with you know, composition,
composition being the asymmetry, start at the head,
You're engaged with the rhythm and that pulls you down piece by piece into the
ground.
I've done everything I can to make it so that the viewer looks and engages with
the drawing head to foot and that's important to me because again, when I
started drawing, I would
I really want to copy Rob Liefeld or Todd McFarlane as much as possible and so I
would start and I'd render their heads but then by the time I got to the foot,
it didn't even look like the same figure.
I hadn't related parts, I had only looked at the individual ones and devoted an
intense amount of attention to each.
So, this is my corrective to that.
Now, before we move on, let's do some wrapping lines.
What is the basic 3D tilt of each part?
And so, I'm just going to use the wrapping line again, think of like it's
just a rubber band.
It's taking a rubber band and subtracting it off the cylinder.
The head looks like it's a little bit leaned back, right?
The way you could double check that if you're doing a more kind of finished
drawing or you want to look at some actual points of reference, I usually
look from like the top of the ear to the brow.
As if somebody were wearing glasses and if you can kind of smooth that out that's
about the same thing that I'm aiming for.
Just that there's a subtle tilt back.
I know that the neck comes forward.
I know that the rib cage comes out.
How do I know that?
Because we studied the spine.
I know that the pelvis is going to go this way.
So each you know, like I usually like to this one feels like too much.
So each part now notationally has a bit of a information about the perspective.
This femur comes forward.
This will become more important when I'm trying to solve for foreshortening which
you know you can't really do in gesture so because you don't have shapes but this
is about the best I get from it and then maybe I have a little bit about this back
here.
Another thing you could check is you know how is your proportion.
Is this what you wanted?
If it's supposed to be eight heads, remember that's at the pelvis.
So if I'm looking for eight heads, I wanna match the top to be the same height
as the bottom.
So is that right?
The value of this stage in a drawing is I can decide if I wanna move forward or
not.
If this looks like something I want, great, spend your time developing it.
If not, you only spend a minute, do another one, try something different.
So let's now do our arms.
Okay, so arms, same thing, two to three lines.
The only thing you need to ask is how would I build off what's already there?
So maybe this line, which I could say that's the deltoid or the shoulder,
that's how it would relate to a part.
Maybe that builds off the neck or maybe it builds off a wrapping line and kind of
takes that rhythm or maybe it relates to the thoracic.
The only thing that's important to me is that every line leads you to every other
line.
So that could be the humerus.
Or you could make that maybe that's one big C curve or maybe you separate the
radius on the hand and do another rhythm off there.
I always make the forearm and hand one line.
So, it could be one C, one S but the hand is always an extension of the gesture of
the arm.
It's very rare that I would do this and then like something like that or
something dramatically different because we expect that sinking of forearm and
hand.
And then on this side, I do the same.
Shoulder.
To this relates to this relates to this but one thing I want you to pay attention
to or just notice as I'm doing these I never use this or this.
There's never in my drawing a vertical.
So, the only thing I'm doing that is kind of key here to keep something that feels
active, that feels like it's full of motion is number one, the rhythm or the
curve but two, every curve exists on a diagonal.
So, here's here and we do I always do that extra one for the bend, this comes
back and then look at this forearm, maybe I could do like a nice S curve off in
total.
Forearm to hand and then this comes back this way.
Okay, so let's do a few more and this one, so each one will go a little bit
faster just so you don't have to feel like I'm slow walking you through each
one.
So, there's my head, cervical, thoracic, stretching, lumbar,
I'm just going to jump to this one, pelvis, and then maybe I'll wrap the line
over to get to that weight-bearing side.
It's common in drawing classes to do these really quickly, right?
You know, usually in a life drawing class you'll have gestures will be done in a
minute or two minutes or you know, something like that.
So, there's always this emphasis on getting it done really quickly and that's
fine but speed just comes with practice.
So, if it takes you if you're going to try to do these for yourself at home,
that takes you five minutes to get here and you feel good about it, that's
awesome, right?
That's fantastic.
There's no real emphasis or need to get time.
The reason I would do that in the class, make the time brief, is to force people
to repeat.
That's the only value I would see.
So if you do two minutes and in two minutes you get through the spine but you
do it really well, that would be fantastic.
So here's the weight-bearing side.
And then maybe we go to the femur.
One thing you can do you know with foreshortening at this point would be
play with line weight.
Really needs shape to create some kind of spatial difference forward and back but I
don't have that.
So things that I can use would be line pressure or line weight.
Here's my rhythm so that comes forward.
Here's that knee and then from that knee
Bounce that back into the maybe make an S-curve.
I use an S-curve here a lot.
I like the way that it kind of feels like the muscle disposition or distribution in
the calf.
I realize that's dangerous to say because now everybody's going to say you're
drawing the outside of the calf.
Foot breakdown here.
So, heel three-quarter.
So, maybe I could make that a little clearer.
Here this is bent back, so that's three quarter but again really pushed under.
So, let's do something like that.
That bendy sock.
Here's some wrapping lines.
Let's do some wraps on our pelvis.
Rib cage goes back and then arm.
So, shoulder.
What does this relate to?
I could build off this line.
Maybe it needs to be a little higher.
Again, that's one thing I like about this is I can move things around.
So, right now I'm trying to manage or try to capture the pose as I see it more so
but most of the time I don't.
It actually takes, you know, I have to concentrate to do the pose.
I'm so used to changing it and I always encourage people to do that too because
who cares if you drew what was there?
Who's going to know?
Like, I'm not going to ever take my drawings over to my mom and say like,
mom, look how
Look at my drawings.
She'll be like, you idiot, that doesn't look like the model but she says that
anyways but she'll, you know, there's no reason for her to say it because she has
never seen the model.
So, nobody will ever know what the model looks like.
They're only going to care if the drawing is interesting to them.
If you've made a cool drawing, people will love it.
So, here's this arm.
So, shoulder, upper arm.
Maybe a little elbow change.
You could double check your proportions if you feel like you made any part too
low or too long.
Happens a lot.
Did that get a little bit off?
Maybe.
Well, I should probably check that next time a little bit more.
I kind of like the way that the rhythm between these hands looks.
There's that kind of quality of motion or connected quality between them.
So, that's one thing I tried to focus on there but that would be done.
So, I'd be good with that.
One thing that if you would like to try to change or move your poses around that
you could start to play with is where the center of gravity is on a figure.
And one way that you could find that is if you look at the pit of the neck.
That's a pit of the neck here and plumb a line down.
If this center of gravity line is close to the medial ankle or the medial
malleolus,
So this guy, that's a pretty balanced pose.
So mine's pretty close.
We check it on this one.
Is the pit of the neck, where does that balance relative to the weight bearing
ankle?
Sometimes a fun exercise can be to try to avoid that if that's the case.
Use the understanding of the center of gravity to create a pose that's
different.
What would a non-balanced pose look like from that perspective?
What are the potential variations of pose that I could start to get if I'm not
Following exactly what's there.
Hopefully, you have a bit of an idea of the cadence of my lines and so short,
medium, long, right?
So, there's asymmetry even in their lengths, short, medium, long into the leg
but remember that organization and notice that regardless of the view, I don't need
to change it.
So, from the back view, cervical, thoracic,
Stretch, lumbar, pelvis.
So let's ornament that with some spatial turns.
Weight-bearing leg here.
But that's one thing I like about this approach is I don't have to do anything
new.
The same organization of line works from just about all angles.
So there's the back of that leg there.
Can't see pit of the neck, but I could pretty good idea where it's at.
And that is that balanced?
Yeah, it's pretty balanced.
So what would I do if I wanted a different type of pose?
I could shift this further.
I can move it this way.
I will do that more in a bit, but I just want to introduce the idea here.
What are the asymmetries of this leg?
Well, that goes forward.
This comes back.
Let's do supporting leg.
So, a rhythm that comes out of that pelvis.
Let's make that a little more exaggerated.
I love that big angle.
Maybe we'll do something like this, right?
I see there's this triangle here.
That feels a little boring, a little stable.
Maybe I want to play with that.
Or maybe I just want to see what that would look like without investing a lot
of time.
So you know I have a thing for diagonals.
So that feels like there's more motion to that side of the leg to me.
Again the point is there's not a right or a wrong.
It's just your style, your approach to gesture needs to allow you to explore and
communicate.
What I like to use in the back would be the scapula.
So sometimes I'll incorporate these just as little curves to allow a movement or
an integration into the arm.
So here.
Scapula gives me that natural rhythm off the stretch.
There's the bone, here's the deltoid and then into the arm just like we've been
doing it.
Comes out and then back.
So, maybe here you could try to create a long rhythm.
Maybe I do like a big C curve between the arms.
So, that would break the line to part rule that I discussed earlier but that's
fine.
Nobody will get mad.
There's the shoulder on this side and that goes up.
To that arm, here's the
Rhythm.
So, all the things that we were talking about early on, like let's say, I'm
really curious about the psychology of non-verbal expression in the body.
Like why is it that or is it the case that when we get, we have more feelings
of negative emotions that our body starts to close in, our head lowers, our
shoulders get high, we kind of move in as a way to protect ourselves.
Now, I have a vehicle that I could try to study that.
What do people look like when they're happy, sad?
I can go out and observe and try to understand that.
And then here's kind of a side three-quarter.
So, this will give us every view, kind of a turnaround to start.
Front three-quarter, side, back.
So, here's my head, cervical.
Another thing that I like to do that you might want to try if you also
Really interested or have an interest in understanding the expression of the body.
Sometimes I'll see a pose and then I'll write down what I think it is.
Like that could just be sad or maybe it's anxious, right?
Or whatever comes to mind, whatever your first, your instinctual reaction is.
I'll just look at if the body, if my drawing communicates that in a way that
is clear and maybe I'll try to save it and I'll use it later.
So there's my four spine lines.
Here's the pelvis.
Here's some wraps.
That shifts my perspective.
Those would be my wrapping lines.
Weight.
Comes out of the pelvis.
One line per part.
Femur.
Lower leg.
There's our rhythm and our composition from head down to foot.
Let's make this an S-curve.
So let's get that long relational line.
That still functions because it would lead into these above.
And then maybe I'll come back and grab onto the end of that line to show you the
bendy sock.
Here showing you more of the bottom of that foot.
Sometimes it's fun to do a little ground plane.
Upper arm, elbow, and then forearm.
And then let's give a brief description of space.
And then maybe you feel like there's an ellipse here.
And that could come forward.
So, to get us started, those are four different views that kind of take us with
that initial approach through the turnaround of the figure, at least in
standing, an emphasis on weight being on one side or the other.
But those would be my six steps that kind of bring the prior lessons into one focus
exercise and kind of keep us under that umbrella of 16 or 17 lines.