Layered Gesture
Lesson 5 from: Introduction to Figure Drawing: Essential Gesture & StructureAmy Wynne
Layered Gesture
Lesson 5 from: Introduction to Figure Drawing: Essential Gesture & StructureAmy Wynne
Lesson Info
5. Layered Gesture
Lessons
Lesson Info
Layered Gesture
we're going to be working with gesture drawing again. But this time instead of using ink and having it drip on the page, we're actually going to kind of take off from that five line drawing that we ended up with and move into what I like to call layered gesture drawing. So rather than having a group of drawings on a page and then when it starts to fill move the paper, we're actually going to I'm going to be drawing sarah as she moves through. Gestural poses with a lot of energy. I'm gonna be putting down probably about five essential marks. And then I'm going to wipe it away and then I'm gonna draw right on top of it again. And what's so I think liberating about that is that, you know, sometimes when we're striving so hard to do well and make a good figure drawing, it actually closes us down. But when we know, so we're just gonna wipe it away and we're just gonna layer right on top of the old one, we can just relax and just draw and just react and not have it be a product based situati...
on, like really be in the process, really be in the flow. And I love doing that. It really helps me because I do sometimes get in that headspace of like it's gotta be perfect. So these are not gonna be perfect. They're just gonna be energetic and that's what we want with just drawing. Okay, you ready to roll? All right. So let me just mention one thing. I have a piece of willow charcoal here. Very lightweight charcoal and I also have just a piece of cotton rag from an old T shirt and that is all we're gonna use for this and what I want to show you which we saw a little bit earlier. But I just want to show you like this tool can make a dark mark and a light mark. But the beauty of it is that you can just wipe it away. So again impermanent, fleeting, just like figure drawing. Okay, let's go for it. Alright, here's our first post. So still first line that I'm gonna make is that essential gesture line through the core of the body, Down to the weight bearing foot. Second line I'm gonna make coming through to the knee and back down to the secondary foot. Third line, Fourth line, and then five. So that's just what we worked with. And then I'm gonna say let's knock that down and let's try it again. Let's start again. Great. Alright, Core of the body down through the spine. I'm always sort of just looking for this with the spines doing not the outer contour of the body, but what's the spine doing? What's the energy of that that flow to me really sort of naming that pose in one line. Then I'm gonna come down to the foot, the balancing foot out to the arm. Second arm for the fourth line and then a sense of the head. Alright and then I'm gonna wipe it away. You notice how I think this is so beautiful? You notice how there's like a ghost sort of image that's left behind. And I love how that in terms of figure drawing really speaks to um letting go and the fleeting nous of the poses coming down to the body to the to the foot, and then this great leg on the left, and then the front arm coming down and then way up high, and then a sense of the head that again, just using five basic lines and then wiping it away. Let's try another. Oh great. So this is a little bit more of a L. Shape coming down and then way down, look at that angle, and then this foot right, and then, I mean it's so beautiful, just tracking the limbs. Just the limbs and then way back, and then the fifth kind of mark could be the head. Great. Let's try some more nice. So I feel like there's a stretch through the front of the body all the way down and out to the leg on the left. That's one line, two lines to this foot, three lines to that arm, four lines to that arm, and then a sense of the head. Great. So we're about halfway through this process here again, warming up and letting go Alright coming down through the core to the foot. 2nd line to the second foot, third line to the arm. Far arm, and then the head and then we let it go bring it out great core of the body back to the hip, down to the ground. Really just feel that really energetically pushing into the ground out to the toe. This arm is almost parallel to the ground, this one comes down to the leg and then a sense of the head. Great nice, really strong, diagonal through the core of the body all the way down to the foot. Maybe even going off the page, doesn't matter coming down to the front foot, the arms stretching out and the other arm twisting down and then the head. Yeah, about three more of these. Really getting a feel for the energy. This is such an important aspect of warming up and just an important aspect of figure drawing, finding that flow, finding that curve, finding the counter leg. What's happening through here, Reaching up with the arm up with the other arm and then just a simple circle for the head. Fabulous! Two more great through the body through the hip and then down to that foot. Just that line says so much, but guess what? We get to have a few more lines so we can put that leg in, we can put this arm in, we can have a little sense of the far arm and then a little sense of the head And our final one great core, even though I can't see the spine, I know that the core of the body is doing something like this. And then this hip is taking the weight down to the foot, another leg coming out this way a little bit more of a closed sense of the arms and then finally it sort of the elegant top of the head and then we have it. Thank you sarah. So I like leaving the last one on top because there's this sense of temporal reality, there's a sense of letting go. There's a sense of this whole process sort of peeking out behind the very last marks you made and this fluidity, this sort of movement. This sort of flow is really what starts to get kind of a bedrock like in your body understanding of what is happening with the model as you're tracking them to draw. So I highly recommend this layered approach. It really helps you just let go of your um inner critic of your any kind of apprehensions or tightness you might have and really gives you the bravery to make uh energetic flowing drawings
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