GESTURE Concept - :Figure:

GESTURE : Concept
Submitted to #contribution-box : 9/2-10
Used in [001 Figure - Technical Study]

The reference image used for the demonstrations is graciously provided by Marcus Ranum.

Photographer : `mjranum-stock (ranum.com)
Model : ~the-hoax

This tutorial is designed to introduce the viewer to the concepts surrounding gestural drawing, specifically with the figure as a subject.

1A : Philosophy

A gesture drawing is any drawing that is created in which the mentality of the artist is focused on creating a representation of the action, motion, weight, or other non-tangible properties of their subject. Traditionally, a gesture is an exercise in quickly recreating as much of a figure as possible, capturing their flow and the nature of their activity and energy. To this end, a gesture is often accompanied by a short time limit, encouraging an artist to make quick decisions.

An effect of these fast choices is that the artist doesn't have the leisure to interpret the figure, rather they are only allowed to see it. This makes a gesture drawing a much more direct transcription of sight than a standard contour drawing. There is no opportunity for the mind to translate what the eye perceives, and thus symbol drawing is bypassed. Rather than seeing a torso, interpreting the torso, and then drawing what the artist thinks a torso looks like, the artist is only given time enough to see a form and a direction. When working on a gesture, the artist must not stop, they must not consider, they must only draw. Their goal is to get as much information on the paper in as little time as possible. By working from short periods of time to longer periods, a hierarchy is developed. First the most important lines or shapes are drawn, followed by the supporting motions, the supplemental forms, and eventually the details. Even the details though are only indicated by a motion, an inclination in a given direction or of a given curve. This is opposite the natural tendency to delve into detail early in a drawing. By working on the important gestures in a drawing, the artist is at no point just drawing a piece of the figure, they are always drawing the entire figure.

In a gesture, as the forms are intangible, the lines are not confined to the surface of the figure, but can be used in any way that represents the reference. Often the flow of movement will extend past the limits of the form, or the structure will be best defined beyond its bounds. The strength of a gesture is that it encourages the artist to trust themselves, to understand that if they see something, or had the desire to draw a line, it was for a distinct reason.

It is common practice to use gesture as a warm up in life drawing sessions, as it gets the artist in a place where they trust their decisions and their impulses. It is also often used before, or at an intermediary stage in a drawing that is to be finalized.

1B : Practice

The key to making a gesture drawing is to retain the mentality of showing as much of the figure, be it visual information, action-based information, or anything else, on the page as quickly as possible. The time limits exist only to develop a hierarchy. At times it is difficult to continue with a gesture, it is an exhausting practice., and an artist is drawn away from their subject and into their drawing. Do not let this happen, always keep attention on the model or reference. You may look at your drawing from time to time, but you are not allowed to stand back and evaluate. Anything you draw when looking at or thinking about the figure during a gesture is pure observation, anything created while looking at your drawing and thinking about it as a single entity is a fabrication. Inventing in this form is not necessarily a bad thing, but it defeats the purpose of gesture, and disrupts the development of the attention and interest of the artist.

There are many different forms of gesture, but all place the artist in the same state of mind. When starting a gesture, it is important to be able to quickly place lines on the page without contemplating the pose for any great deal of time. To this end, there are a series of standard lines for which to look on the figure, as an initial point.

Important Lines :

• Single
  What is the single most important line that defines the figure? If you were allowed only one brush stroke to represent everything about the action, form, weight and other attributes of the figure, this is the stroke you would make. It is often the sweeping motion easiest to see in the form. This line will serve as the foundation for the entire gesture that follows.


• Thrust
  What are the forces that the figure is enacting on the environment, or that the surrounding space enacts on the figure? Each piece of the body has a direction to it, which changes based on how strained it is and how it is used in the pose and relative to the primary gesture. This is not often used as a starting gesture, but to evaluate a longer gesture and give the artist information about which curves need to be accented. Looking for these thrusts in the beginning, even if they are not drawn, is very useful in the development of the gesture.


• Center
  The center line that runs down the surface of the figure to the base of the feet (or to the projection of the center of balance). If the front of the model is seen, this line runs down the center of the face, the chest, through the navel, over the pubic region, and either down the strongest leg in the pose or between the legs to fall at the center of balance - while synthesizing the gesture of both legs. If the back of the model is seen this is drawn down the spine (it is important to note that this line is only drawn if it is seen, it is primarily a contour).


• Three-Line
  
  • The approximate spine (the center line may replace this)
  • The line between the shoulders
  • The line between the hips
  
  Often the shoulder and hip lines are rendered as straight lines, so the relative heights and angles are defined.

The length of time spent on a gesture determines how much the artist allows themselves to see. In a short gesture they limit themselves to the most crucial lines, in an extended gesture they force themselves to see the most subtle of nuances. However, the same frame of mind is required for both, and all gestures, regardless of length, should begin the same way (do not be more lenient, simply because you know you have more time).

Gesture Duration :

• 5 sec - 10 sec
  These are standard short term gesture times, times shorter than five seconds usually require a construct or means of viewing poses quickly (10 seconds is usually the fastest reasonable time frame for a model). When doing a short gesture the artist can get only a few definite lines on the page at a time, so they must choose exactly which lines to create. Alternately, some methods of gesture call for creating a single continuous line, in which case the construction of form exists through rapid contour tracing and weighting.


• 30 sec - 60 sec
  A time range such as this is a moderate gesture duration, allowing for the artist to get the overall motion, secondary motion, and most of the forms in place. Generally this begins with the same mentality and speed as a shorter duration, allowing for the forms that are created after the first ten seconds to hold a supplemental but supportive nature to the original gesture. The intent of the original gesture should never be lost, regardless of the duration.


• 1 min - 5 min
  This is a relatively long time period, and in addition to allowing all of the development of the 60 second gesture, it allows for proportional corrections and form corrections to be made (while retaining the gesture). Often this involves strengthening the relationship between curved gestures and the solid straight lines. At this point, the weighting and balance of the figure have already been developed (likely in the first 10 seconds), but may be incorporated into the individual forms.


• 10 min +
  This is generally what is referred to as an "extended gesture", one who's purpose is to train the artist to retain a gesture mentality for as long as possible. Beyond the first five minutes, the artist feels that they have finished a drawing, or seen all that there is to see. By extending the gesture and forcing them to keep up the frantic velocity of their lines (not allowing them to go into intricate details) it trains them to see things they would normally overlook. Be it muscle shapes, planes of the form, areas of tone, internal gestures or structures, whatever the artist sees at this point is crucial to training their visual acuity for the figure. Anything they notice now is something they would not have seen before, and thus is something for which they will look even when not drawing a gesture.

The standard form of gesture follows the development of the action of a figure, however there are many other things that can be represented by a gestural drawing.

Alternate Techniques :

• Weighted Gesture
  The focus of a weighted gesture is to lend a physical quality of weight and balance to the types of lines used in the figure. A heavier line will be used for an element that is strained, or part of the grounding mechanism of the figure. Whatever is receiving more force becomes the darkest, or strongest line / form.


• Volume Gesture
  This is a technique in which the 3-Dimensional form of an object is revealed, usually through rapid surface contours. The line is run successively around a shape, wrapping around the skin, and showing the curvature or geometric nature of its subject.


• Tonal Gesture
  This is a gesture using swatches of tone rather than line. The mentality is the same, but by focusing on shapes rather than contours, the artist is allowed to quickly structure form and adapt to lighting. If this technique is used, it often utilizes the development of a palette (blending from an initial limited palette to a gradient). The immediate strong choices are the overall areas of light and shadow, followed by breaking this up into areas of midtone, highlight, reflected light, etc. until a smooth gradient is achieved (the indefinite final goal, the least important choices).


• Croquis
  A Croquis drawing is really more of a aesthetic sketch, but done in a very quick time frame. This still allows the artist to develop a hierarchy of important shapes, but to do so in a manner that does not require the immediacy of trying to capture motion. The focus of a Croquis drawing is much more balanced between process and product, the artist is using their impressions of the figure to develop a beautiful form on their canvas, rather than simply to discover the implied and intangible lines.

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There is more yet to come, descriptions of weight, stress, volume, and tone gestures, an exercise list, resources, quotes from some of the resources (mainly Nicolaides) and links to gesture work from the Master Artists (quite a few actually from the Renaissance, from the preparatory works for the larger paintings).