Gesture Drawing

1. Gesture Drawing Objective: You will sketch figures in action poses in order to learn how to draw a gesture. DRILL: Get a marker, crayon, oil pastel, and/ or paint. Get a piece of large newsprint from front desk. What is a gesture drawing? A gesture is a quick sketch of a figure in motion. Gesture drawing can exist on two levels - action drawing, and gesture drawing. Both involve the principle of movement. However, action drawing deals with physical movement; and gesture drawing involves not only physical movement, but a deeper concept of essential identity, as well.

2. Use lines for bones, circles for joints

6. Gesture Drawing • Body with lines and shapes. Straight pose. • 4 1 minute poses in action • 4 2 minutes poses showing an emotion or expressing a mood. Use color and quick lines. • 2 people ~ 5 minutes. Emotion/ Action • Create a background that shows a mood like the emotionalism spread. Draw a figure on it using gesture. (or cut out one or two yours from today’s lesson)

7. Gesture Drawing: Gesture drawing is related to action drawing, but it goes further. I see the idea of gesture as the essential character of a figure or object, a kind-of eastern philosophy viewpoint. That is, everything has a gesture. As Nicolaides wrote, "Everything has a gesture - even a pencil." On the physical level, the pencil's gesture is a "shooting" straight line, very quick. That physical movement has an intangible counterpart - its essence - its movement identity, personality, or essence. • When you strive to capture the essence of an object or person, your art will start to be on a deeper level than mere appearances. Another example of this notion is the idea of a ribbon tied into a bow. When you do a drawing of what the bow looks like, you will get just that - its appearance. But when you do a gesture drawing of the bow, you will get what the bow is DOING, its action. Your line will move, stop and go very quickly, around, up and down, getting the FEEL of the figure in real or perceived movement. Don't look much at your paper - just keep looking at what you are drawing, and work very quickly, trying to find the axis, or essence, as quickly as possible. Draw figures and animals, and different types of objects, such as flowers, shoes, and trees.

8. Marty tells about her workMy visual work is my way of speaking. My way of being in the world. My source is desire. Longing for gestures I have not previously made. Gestures that speak about how I look at the world from my reality. I am talking about the living world in its loneliness. Its separateness. In its being different. Without land, without origin. Suffering. Loving. Vulnerable, yet grand: strange! That mystery I want to show. • The beauty of nature and the relationship between humans and animals are to me an endless source of inspiration. I work from a non- thoughtful flow of lines and gestures. A game where I surrender to a kind of inner music. All images are notes of the same music which cannot exist without each other. • I myself am the outsider. The observer. The spectator who intuitively registers the things that hit me emotionally and are existential for me. As an artist I try to get a grip on that reality.

9. First, action drawing: This exercise works best with figures or animals. You are essentially trying to capture the action the figure is performing. Once again, a likeness or correct proportions are not important in this exercise, nor is the exercise meant to result in a finished drawing. This is an exercise to get you to learn to identify the action the figure is doing, with his/her body. Individual body parts are not important here - only the curve or direction of the main bodily movement. You are not capturing what the figure or object looks like, but what it is doing. In fact, you are looking at the figure as a form in space, not as a person or animal. You are seeking what the form itself is doing. Try to FEEL the line of movement, the fullness of the curves.