If you haven't watch the gesture video yet, pause this and go watch it...

Let's take a look at some examples and find their gestures.

30 Second poses

Usually I'll start with the head, but not always. If I'm in the mood to identify the

torso first, I'll do that. There are no rules about this. Then find the gesture of the neck,

and the action line to the foot. Looking at the torso, the first thing I notice is that

the left side is pinching and the right side is stretching. So, the shoulders will be slanted

one way, and the hips the other way. This brings the points closer together on the left

side, compressing the forms, and brings the points further away from each other on the

right side, stretching the forms. Find some rhythm lines for the legs... And the arms.

That right there is the most simplified version of this pose. It's only a few lines but in

30 seconds it's enough to explain what the pose is doing.

You might feel like 30 seconds is just too quick. In that case there are two possibilities.

Either you're brand new at this and you really DO need a little extra time. You can try 45

seconds to a minute. Or you're really over thinking it. Looking at the contours too much

will cause you to draw things that are not necessary to capture the motion and you end

up running out of time. Remember to draw what you feel, not what you see.

2 minute poses

Taking 10-15 seconds to just look and analyze the pose is not a waste of time. It allows

you to create a game plan and use the 2 minutes you have wisely.

Ok, so again I'll start with a clean oval for the head and then attach the rhythm of

the neck following the sternocleidomastoid muscle. Angle of the shoulders and rhythm

of the torso using the centerline to determine that curve. From a front view ill start from

the shoulder a drop a rhythm through the side of the ribcage to the pubic bone. Get the

pinching on the right side and stretch on the left. Two c curves for the gesture of

the leg from the front. Indicate the other side of the leg with somewhat parallel rhythm,

considering the thickness of each part of the leg. Now I'll find the arm rhythms, remembering

to look for the motion not the contour. And an upside down heart shape for the breasts.

For a head in profile, I'll start with a circle for the cranium, angle for the front of the

face and jaw. Kind of like a simplified version of Loomis's method I went over in my portrait

fundamentals series.

Get the rhythm of the neck and the shoulders. In the torso, I'm seeing a stretch on the

left side of the back and a pinch on the right side.

Consider tapering/thickness of forms As you get comfortable ignoring detail and

seeing the big picture, you can move on to a slightly more structural approach. Now you

are giving some love and thought to the forms. Still not drawing any 3d forms but considering

them in the design of the gesture. I'm staying true to the thickness of the form and any

kind of tapering from thick to thin, such as from the hip to the knee. Whereas before,

in the 30 second drawings, I wasn't concerned about that at all. I was just drawing the

motion.

If you tend to make your poses stiff, think of the torso and limbs as a snake. Forget

about any bones, hard forms, rigid forms. Think of it as a fluid cylinder and try to

see the motion. Find the c curves and s curves.

Draw smart not fast When you do these gesture drawings of 2-10

minutes, the point of the exercise is not to draw as fast as you can to draw as much

as possible. If you draw as fast as you can you will have messy, bad lines and the more

you do the exercise the more that will become a habit and eventually you're drawing ugly

lines whether its timed or not. Instead of drawing fast, draw smart. Simplify the figure

down to whatever degree needed to draw it in the time you have. As the time decreases,

just filter out the next least important thing to finish the drawing in the allotted time.

With a 30 second or 1 minute pose you only have enough time to draw the most essential

elements. But keep your lines clean and accurate.

Look for a rhythm from the arm all the way to the end of the fingers. Unless separating

the hand to its own rhythm is essential for the body language, try to find a continuous

flow.

Starting with the head neck shoulders.. And then observing the c curve of the torso. The

tendency for many people would be to draw the torso straight because it almost is. The

c curve is very subtle, but important to make her look relaxed. Making it too straight would

make her feel tense and stiff.

Curve over the breast around the pit of neck. Another from nipple to nipple and also under

the breast curving up to show that they're wrapping over the rib cage. This is more important

than showing the downward curves of each individual breast. These curves would go against the

large form of the rib cage. They're important to show the forms of the individual breasts,

but at this phase, focus on the bigger picture of identifying the pose. Anatomical detailed

forms come later.

When it's not too important to show the breasts wrapping over the rib cage, like, when the

ribcage is vertical, I like using an upside-down heart rhythm. Again, Curve over the breast

around the pit of neck and then under each breast. Make sure the heart is symmetrical

and this V shape between the breasts lands on the centerline and follows the gesture.

I'll use a zig zag in the arm, giving the elbow a sharp corner. This will add more tension

there, which is good because a lot of the weight of her body is being supported by that

elbow. The other arm is relaxed, so I'll use a fluid s curve.

Curve the shin out at the tibia and then back in at the foot. It's very common to see a

beginner draw this area straight and lose the elegant gesture of the shin to the foot.

Make sure to think about this motion as you draw the contour. Or a better way of saying

it, think of the motion as you �design� the contours. Because when you're designing

something, you're changing it with a purpose.

Exaggerate Get used to being able to exaggerate the gesture.

Push the story to be more exciting and clearer to the viewer. I'll show you a pose where

I'll push the gesture REALLY far. As far as I can without breaking it.

With this pose I'm gonna try to exaggerate the motion of the pelvis going back and to

the right. So, I'll rotate the head to the right to follow this motion.

Consider the forms as you identify the gesture. When exaggerating you need to exaggerate thinking

3-dimensionally, not just 2d curves. Even though you're drawing 2d curves, you kinda

have to curve them in a way that still makes sense 3-dimensionally.

Gesture is like the eyes of a portrait drawing. Eyes give the portrait its life and gesture

gives the figure its life.

Assignment and have fun! If I were to give you an assignment for this,

if this were a real classroom environment, I'd say get a bunch of figure photos and draw

10 to 20 of them every day. I promise you will improve. And rewatch this episode and

last week's episode a few times. Remind yourself what you're trying to do. And listen for those

things that I repeat several times. Don't copy, don't draw the contour, find the story

etc.. Also, try drawing along. The premium section has a lot of videos of example gesture

drawings in real time. So you can draw along, pause if you need to. But most of all have

fun with it. Don't stress over it or get mad if they don't turn out good right away. Enjoy

the process, and realize that you're drawing! It's a treat to just sit down and draw for

a while. If you're having fun and enjoying yourself, you'll learn better.

What's in the premium section? If you want to see more detailed explanation,

plenty of examples and more premium videos check out proko.com/figure. For every free

video that I post during this figure series, I'm posting additional premium content on

proko.com. In this free video I showed 7 examples poses. In the premium section I show 41 examples,

with more tips on specific areas of figure gesture. That's over an hour of video with

about 30 minutes of narration. And we're just at the beginning of the figure drawing series.

Visit proko.com/figure for more details.

In the premium section, I'll be posting student work and videos of me correcting those student

drawings. That's where you come in..

So, practice some gesture drawings using the concepts from this lesson and last week's.

Post your drawings on your Facebook page, tumblr, blog, forum, wherever you like to

post your artwork. In your post make sure to mention this video and include a link to

it. Email me and tell me where I can find your drawings. Make sure to follow the guidelines

that I describe on proko.com/critiques. Everyone that participates will be able to download

that critique video. So go! Go practice! And then post...

Oh ya and then if you need poses to draw from, I have some photo sets that you can download

at proko.com/poses

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to be updated about new videos. Buh Bye!