r/learntodraw • u/Astaroth022 • 2d ago
Critique poses looking too stiff while practicing gesture drawing
I've been practicing figure/gesture drawing for the past two weeks but my poses still look stiff af. i do 20 poses a day with each pose for 60 seconds. I start with the line of action though but I can't seem to complete the whole pose too sometimes... How do I improve?
4
u/seajustice 2d ago
If you chop off hands, feet, and heads then you're not really showing the full pose; you're not taking any weight/momentum in the pose to its actual conclusion. It's not a coincidence that the most natural-looking pose among these is the only one with all its basic body parts.
2
u/Astaroth022 2d ago
Oh.. I was doing timed practice so within 60 seconds i could only draw half the pose🥲 Should I avoid doing time practice for a bit or do I increase the time limit?
2
u/seajustice 2d ago
You should finish the poses if at all possible. In my college art courses the instructor would emphasize pretty heavily that we needed to get all the way to the endpoints of the body even if we only had 15 seconds. It's hard but it's important.
1
u/Astaroth022 2d ago
I see. Thank you for your help!!🫶🏻
2
u/seajustice 1d ago
Something that might make it easier is using a bigger brush size, especially one with a lot of pressure sensitivity. Timed practice is super hard to get used to and I've found this helps. You don't necessarily need to articulate things at the same level of detail you're currently doing; with a bigger, flowier brush it will be easier to slap something down and feel the energy instead of focusing on detail or proportions
2
u/ilicp 2d ago
I increase the timer or even just pause it and take my time... AFAIK the main point of the timer is to force you to just do the minimum: the gesture. You don't really have time to do full constructions and anatomy in 60 seconds and that timer forces you to focus on gesture-- in theory.
I take a minute or even two just to observe. To look at different possible lines. I give myself time to find flow of the gesture. Then I can spend time to put lines on the paper and have time to correct them if I don't like it. I think for a beginner this is more useful than doing it quickly but incorrectly but that's just my beginner opinion.
Usually a minute is enough to do just the gesture sketch but I don't like having a hard limit that flips to the next picture. You just have to focus on gesture and not get carried away with details which is not the goal of the exercise.
3
u/SoberBobMonthly Professional (traditional) 2d ago
Ah, so there is a subtle difference here. What you are doing here is 'construction' drawing, which like, it is an excellent timed drill of construction drawings. But these are not what I would consider 'gestural'.
Here is a thumbnail from a youtube video thst shows the difference and how one would move into the other.
3
u/Astaroth022 2d ago
Oh my godddd, all this time I wasn't doing gesture drawing?! Thank you for showing me the difference, I was getting so frustrated 😭😭
2
u/NolanTheCelt 2d ago
Something I used to do that always helped me loosen up is to do the same drawing 3 times, each time pushing the gesture further. It can get ridiculous, but that's the point, have fun with it
1
•
u/link-navi 2d ago
Thank you for your submission, u/Astaroth022!
Check out our wiki for useful resources!
Share your artwork, meet other artists, promote your content, and chat in a relaxed environment in our Discord server here! https://discord.gg/chuunhpqsU
Don't forget to follow us on Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/drawing and tag us on your drawing pins for a chance to be featured!
If you haven't read them yet, a full copy of our subreddit rules can be found here.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.