Gestures you'll want to make....

Progressive gesture pose with back-and-forth changes every 15 seconds for several minutes.

When I first studied drawing, my greatest love was the gesture drawing. One minute to capture the essence of the way the model was standing, sitting, lying, squatting, kneeling.  I'm still partial to them. I almost never do what most would call a finished drawing in a life-drawing session. To me, because of the way the Art Students League taught, life drawing is for learning, not for creating works of art--although sometimes something becomes a work of art because of its extraordinary and unexpected grace or strength or design or vibrancy or expression.

Last evening's life session provided a form of gesture I had never experienced before, a sort of progressive gesture routine, almost a dance. Indeed, there were two different formats, both interesting to work at.

Perfect, now change

The first involved the model changing pose completely about every 40 seconds six or seven times. Timing was at the model's discretion, so it was not exact. All the better; what you had when the pose changed forced you to think instantly where on the page to place the next pose.

Of course, if one were to draw tiny figures in one part of the paper, that would work. But it would also violate one of the main thrusts of the gesture pose: achieving freedom both in the forms on the paper and in the artist's use of his or her hands and choice of implement. In short, every instructor you will ever meet will tell you to find big sheets of paper and draw large figures.

That, in addition to training the eye to see movement and hand to create it in two dimensions, is essential to good gesture drawing practice.

There is no time to change sheets of paper or even turn the pages of a newsprint pad during these poses, so it's either draw as the masters recommend, or minge down into little teeny crabbed drawings all over the page.

Drawing outside the box

The second progressive routine was in some ways even more interesting. In it, the model chose a pose with both feet on the floor, and one with one foot up on a stool. He then moved back and forth between the two poses about every 15 seconds, self-timed.

I rarely draw in pen at any time, certainly not usually in a life class, when my weapon of choice is usually sepia Conte crayon for several reasons. I like the color. You can swipe a kneaded eraser over errors and they'll mostly be erased, but you can still discern later where your eye/hand went wrong, but perhaps no one else can. Good for the soul...or confidence. If you do get something good, you can tune it up later and the newsprint paper I use will discolor to a nice, medieval-looking shade of yellow-beige, which delights me. And if you do get one really right, it looks great in studio lights. Again, good for the soul/ego.

But for the second progressive poses, I chose pen. The result was far looser than most of my work; it had to be. In such a short time, one can search out only a couple of structures of the body, and the search is with a pen. Making a mark; if it isn't right, moving it...but without erasing. It is a demanding, but also immensely freeing, exercise. It might show you that you know more (or less) than you think you do about the structures and movement of the human body. It's good to know what you don't know so you can fix it, and what you do know so you can devote your energies elsewhere. It will train you to remember, mentally and physically, where you made a mark the last time that phase of the pose came round and begin there.

I might do more pen and ink work. I kind of like it....which is something that surprises this academically oriented perfection freak thoroughly.