Gesture Drawing (Also - Attitude)

The idea of Blind Contour Drawing isn't to be able to draw blind anymore then the idea of gesture drawing is to be able to atelier style paintings in under a minute.

The idea is just to get in the habit of looking at the object you are drawing, so that you can learn about it while doing observational drawing. That's all.

It's possible to do a perfect blind contour drawing that intersects in all the right places. I've seen it done. But what would be the point?

If you notice that you look more or look more closely at the object your drawing after doing a blind contour, then it's done it's job. If you haven't, then it's not helping.

I've avoid showing you Vilppu because you might find him a little flowery and he doesn't do any beating around the bush about how much raw time it can take to learn some of this stuff, but there are people you should trust more than me about drawing, and he's one of them.

edited 12th Dec '10 5:41:12 PM by Roman

If you notice that you look more or look more closely at the object your drawing after doing a blind contour, then it's done it's job. If you haven't, then it's not helping.

That's the thing, then; I haven't really noticed myself looking at the drawing any more than I was beforehand. When I'm drawing something I look at at the details, whether I'm looking at the page or not. I guess it's not for me.

I see what you mean, though; if you're not looking at the picture all the time you might start drawing from what you think the picture should look like rather than what it does look like. I learnt that ages ago.

See, I never got taught any of this in A-Level art; we just got taught how to criticise art and copy the works of others. Almost nothing on how to actually draw stuff (okay, we did a bit of life drawing, but at the time we were more thinking "ew, naked person" than really concentrating on the drawing).

Honestly... every time I start trying to learn drawing skills, I end up getting stressed and questioning why I even draw in the first place. I've still not come up with a good answer, other that I like the accomplishment from drawing a good picture, and I like the attention I get when I show my work to people. That, and I want to pull out the things that I think up and pin them so that they can't change any more; half of the time when I'm imagining something, I'm trying to remember or think about how it looks, and it's a constant pain.

That link you gave is actually pretty helpful. It gives me pretty much the idea of how to do a gesture drawing, which will be invaluable.

edited 12th Dec '10 6:17:06 PM by EthZee

Honestly... every time I start trying to learn drawing skills, I end up getting stressed and questioning why I even draw in the first place.

*cough*

Oh, and if that was helpful, you might want to google "Villpu Drawing Manual" which will present you with the same Buy/ Torrent decision you've probably had on the internet before.

edited 12th Dec '10 6:40:25 PM by Roman

It's strange... why do those people keep recommending looking at the work of the pros? All that does is make me jealous and disgusted at my own efforts.

Alright, so I draw. But I can't take it seriously; the pictures I draw won't be right, so why should I invest any effort in them?

Okay. So what I just drew is alright. But I'm still angry. And I don't know why. I get like this often; angry, jealous, and then I start drawing disturbing stuff. I don't know why.

Oh, and if that was helpful, you might want to google "Villpu Drawing Manual" which will present you with the same Buy/ Torrent decision you've probably had on the internet before.

Please. I don't like pirating stuff. Give me at least a tad of respect.

OKAY: Update. I've moved from Nine Inch Nails to Ben Folds, and I feel better. I saw a study that Da Vinci did of male pectoral muscles and now I think I can do the male chest a bit better. I've cheered up.

edited 12th Dec '10 7:54:33 PM by EthZee

Different people feel different ways about piracy. While it's good you can still buy Villpu books, finding Bridgman's anatomy books or Loomis ihave been out of print a long time and can be very expensive. There are a lot of artists who would not have succeeded nearly as much without the gray market.

I didn't mean it as a disrespect.

Anyway. It is part attitude. There are some people who feel happy when they see others succeed, because it means they may have the potential to hit that plateau as well.

Re Update: Awesome. Glad you're feeling better.

edited 12th Dec '10 8:01:31 PM by Roman

Anyway. It is part attitude. There are some people who feel happy when they see others succeed, because it means they may have the potential to hit that plateau as well.

Ah, well, I'm realistic in that regard, some people have more talent/effort/motivation than others. Some people will just be better than other people. Whilst it's true that I have the potential to become a great artist, doesn't mean I necessarily will. Hence the jealousy issues. I am a bitter person.

I didn't mean it as a disrespect.

Don't worry, didn't mean that seriously. And yeah, I got the Loomis books in digital format. I thought they were out of print. I've been using a few things from them, like the mannequin he has.

I don't know, if you imagine it's that much of a difference to you, then wouldn't you work harder and be better at it?

Only one person can be the best, but I'm sure if you worked hard, given a reasonable period of time, you could get much better.

If you want to see this happen , take a look at this thread that shows pretty strong progress from 2002 to 2007 or so. Although he followed atelier methods and ended up much stronger as observational painter than an imaginative one, he's still pretty decent from imagination, and is working on it.

You could too. I have faith in you.

Yeah, I saw that thread. It's insane, the level of progress he's made.

Thanks for the words of support, it's encouraging.

It's just... I'm looking at the kind of stuff that needs to be done to improve and I want to know; do I have to go all through that; drawing the boxes, the cubes, the shapes, the gesture drawing, learning the anatomy, all of that, just so I can draw things?

Because it seems that way. I can't draw anything interesting until I've done all those things. Like, everything I draw from now until I get to the point where I've learnt all that, should just be thrown away. Because it won't be half as good as anything I draw when I've got to that level.

Well... some people do do that.

One of the big reliefs of doing observational drawing is I never had a big gaps of "what should I draw now," so I enjoyed it, but I know it would be awful if I actually though I should never draw anything from imagination for four years just because I knew the path to getting better involved a lot of observational drawing.

I never did that. And if you noticed, although mindcandyman did a lot more focus on observational work, he never gave up working from imagination.

You're going to need to figure out how much time you have to do each on your own and how your going to do it.

I will say, though, that at my most productive I was doing about 2/3 to 3/4 observational work. Maybe set aside an hour or two to do a really cool idea you had or a daily sketch group and spend another hunk of time doing exercises to improve your drawing?

That might be an idea. I mean, it'd be nice to not have to worry about what to draw next. And if I'm learning then it won't be the worst thing in the world.

I just don't want to turn drawing into another thing which becomes something that I have deadlines, and schedules, and things I have to work for. I don't want to make drawing a job. I like drawing because it's nice to do; if it ever became work then I would be distressed.

Anyway. I might see about signing up to that website. As long as I can keep myself for going B'AWWWWWWWWW and moaning like a whore every time I feel stressed, as you've no doubt noticed (¬_¬), then I might be able to make some progress.

Anyway, it's so late it's gone round to morning again here. I need to sleep. What do you suggest I start on, learning-wise?

There's just so much stuff. If it's people, creatures, comics, machines, buildings, abstract, fine art, illustration, animation, scenes, still lifes...

People are definitely my preference in which case:

Gesture isn't bad. Probably anatomy too. A lot of people just go through Bridgman's books copying everything to learn the major masses. It might help. Faces. Preferably self portraits from mirrors, just so you don't get too squeamish about drawing from life. Draw your own hands, too.

No reason you can't get all that done in a day. Or a week. Or a month. Depending on how you feel about it.

edited 12th Dec '10 9:27:11 PM by Roman

I've been continuing to do sketches for the last week; as well as that, I've started studying muscle charts and making studies and things.

Argh. So much to learn! And the gesture sketches are still hard to grasp; I'm never sure which part to concentrate on, the basic wireframe or the masses.

I did a separate picture, and I still had to use posemaniacs for pose references. I'm still having trouble drawing correct poses for walking and running, can't remember them correctly.

Do you think I should sign up to that Concept Art community, Roman? It might help, or it might just stop getting updated after about a month. -_-

edited 19th Dec '10 5:38:08 PM by EthZee

I'm really glad your keeping at it!

You don't have to set up a sketchbook thread if you don't want to. I did have one thread that lasted a few months there, but the problem was I wasn't working digitally then and the time it too just to scan in my output was slowing me down.

Then again, if you really feel you work best with steady feedback, a sketchbook thread, or a de facto sketchbook thread in the fine arts or critique center sub forums might be just what you need.

You'll have to come up with your own pace of when to post in the community or not, but there's lots of valuable info there, for newbies and pros a like. I recommend it.

How's the drawing going?

Erm, not very much?

In the last week I've honestly not done that much in the way of drawing. What with Christmas coming up and visiting family and things, I've not really bothered with it. I need to get a new sketchbook so that's put it on hold as well.

And at the moment drawing people is getting on my nerves slightly. Learning the muscle groups and things is hard.

What's the difference between a blind contour and a gesture drawing? We were always trying out blind contours of our fists in class way back in middle school, but I haven't tried much past it.

Blind contour is where you look at an object and try to draw it without looking down at your paper.

Gesture drawing is usually looking at a person and capturing their pose in a few seconds.

You also do contour drawings very, very slowly. I think that the teacher basically ordered us to spend at least five minutes drawing a continuous outline of our off hand, if that's any indication.

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=2981436#post2981436

Oop, bloody hell. Apologies, actually, Roman: I have done almost no drawing since the start of the new year. I bought a new sketchbook but I almost haven't touched it.

Partly it's the job-searching and that, but partially it's because I haven't really felt much of an urge to draw? Annoyingly, it comes and goes. I actually went almost a year without doing any new works (I did do plenty of sketches of pigeons on my morning/evening commute, though).

I'll try and get something done tonight, even if it is just some crappy gesture drawing.

Alright, forgive me for the double-post but I managed to do a page of gesture sketches. Still don't think I'm learning enough from them. And I don't really feel the urge to do more practice at the moment. Mainly just feeling irritated. >_<

About what?

And it's not as if gestures take this enormous amount of time that needs to be justified by learning enormous amounts all at once. After spending 20 minutes doing gestures, spend an hour doing something else. (Copies from photographs, drawings of your own hand, works from imagination, studies from Bridgman or Loomis, whatever.)

edited 25th Jan '11 9:08:52 AM by Roman

Hm. I think it was more of a general sense of irritation. I get it when drawing at times.

And no, gesture drawings don't take up much time or effort. It's just that... ehhhh. Not much impetus to draw at the moment. It happens, I'm used to it.

Bump◊ Bump◊

edited 18th Feb '11 9:44:15 AM by Roman

Well, lookit that. Thought this thread had died.

Hm. Those yours? They're pretty good. I've not done gesture drawings in months. -_-

(as I said, my urge to draw comes and goes. If I don't have anything to do then that helps as well)