Does grinding gesture drawings daily actually help you improve or is it just fake bullshit?
>>7864055>Will drawing daily help me improve at drawing?Yes. Yes it will.
>>7864055"Gesture drawing" comes from a book called "The Natural Way to Draw" by American artist Kimon Nicolaides. It was published in 1941, three years after he died. So this is a relatively new idea that comes from a painter with fairly modernist sensibilities. It does not come from the Renaissance, or the French Academy, or any of the artists of the past that most people admire. It's become fashionable now, however.
>>7864055It helps you improve at drawing gesture and it’ll make your work more dynamic, but it isn’t useful for beginners because they don’t understand how to stylize the drawing because they don’t understand proportions, anatomy, etc. Pic related is by Glen Keane and proves how much is necessary to create a convincing, good gesture drawing. It’s better to take time to understand other elements of human anatomy before getting into gesture, even if you want to animate
>>7864090I do admire the hustle to just spread the most retarded misinformation possible, but unfortunately gesture drawing has been around since the Renaissance as part of compositional planning
>>7864120Nope. "Gesture drawing" is treated here as its own discipline, something to practice in and of itself. It's in the first chapter of the Nicolaides book, as an exercise for absolute beginners. Proko and the others also teach it to beginners. You are comparing this to master artists, people at the absolute pinnacle of their craft, jotting down figures in shorthand while working out a composition. Do you see the difference? The master knows the figure inside and out. He makes a quick sketch because that's all he needs to work out the placement and pose of the figure, and he has the knowledge of drawing, anatomy, motion, etc. to fill out the details later. He isn't getting in his reps practicing "gesture drawing." Artists in the past wrote about their craft. There's no evidence of anyone in the 19th, 18th, 17th, 16th or 15th centuries advocating for the practice of anything equivalent to "gesture drawing." Here's John Gadsby Chapman in 1870:>"The imitation, by beginners, of off-hand sketches, or memoranda, by practised artists, however spirited, and often effective, should be discouraged. They are, frequently, little more than the short-hand notes of a writer — intelligible to him, but only conveying, to others, faint and uncertain ideas — dashed off in a moment of haste, or under circumstances that would preclude the possibility of doing more at the time, intended for the private use of the artist alone, and serving to preserve the recollection of the subject upon his mind, for future elaboration. To him, such sketches are invaluable but, for the use of others, something more is required. A drawing and a sketch are two different things. Although one must learn to draw, before he can sketch, the capacity for one is dependent upon the other."
>>7864136okay here you go. open widehttps://www.metmuseum.org/essays/renaissance-drawings-material-and-functionriddle me this anon, why would they practice this at an atelier (14th century) if it were to be used only by artists that knew how to draw?
>>7864055from my experience every single artist i adore is excellent at gesture. i dig through their socials and i find old studies where they drew like a thousand gestures, all different poses, angles, etc. i'm going to say yes
>>7864161What part of that webpage do you think proves your point?
>>7864171I can't also read it for you unfortunately. If you see "gesture drawing" as exactly how Nicolaides formalized it, then I'm sorry. The process of making sure a figure has life and the forms flow nicely (composition) is the hallmark of the Renaissance. That is what differentiates it from this stiff, lifeless middle age art. I understand you being anal about the naming convention but (if you read the article) gesture drawing has been a step in the process of a working artist for centuries now. And recorded even that they indeed did this by the artists themselves and all the working ateliers where they studied and practiced this. It seems to me like you are making the argument that WW1 didn't exist because back in the days it was called The Great War and not WW1. I'm not a fan of Nicolaides myself but if he was the first to bring it up once again in discussion under a "new name", so be it, but you cannot deny that the essence of gesture drawing has been practiced for centuries.
>>7864180>In preparing a composition, artists first drew quick sketches, usually in pen and ink, in which they formulated general ideas rather than focused on details.>In the next steps of the creative process, artists investigated the poses of the figures from life models.>Artists then integrated the results of studying the figures from life models into a summary design of the composition, in order to pull together the figural arrangements with the lighting effects and setting.>As a final step, artists drew cartoons (full-scale drawings).This is just restating what I said! It's talking about the practice of master artists like Leonardo Da Vinci and Raphael. Nowhere does it say that beginners learning art were told to make drawings from a model in 15 seconds to a minute. Not one drawing on that page even resembles the one in OP. Most of them are studies brought to a high level of finish. A few are compositional sketches. Again, that's not what "gesture drawing" is. If "gesture drawing" was just sketching it would be called sketching. The term "gesture drawing" was coined by Nicolaides. He defined it. That's where it comes from.
It really doesn't make sense to practice drawing these stick people. Yes, your drawings need "gesture" (or flow, or energy, or dynamism, or whatever you like to call it), but just because you make an observation about a needed skill in art, it doesn't then mean you need to go and study a retardified, simplified version of that skill stripped of all meaning, context, and dare I say fun. Just practice drawing human figures, study anatomy when you need to, and push your shapes. Stop atomizing every little thing.
>>7864196Yes, qualities like rhythm are present in drawing and painting, and don't require "gesture drawing." You can draw a figure that suggests movement and grace without drawing rapidly or scribbling or whatever. I'm not even telling anyone NOT to practice gesture drawing, just to understand that it's a recent invention and isn't required for drawing good figures. Maybe it is helpful for animation; I would defer to the best animators on that question. But for figure drawing, I defer to the best draftsmen, all of whom are long dead.
>>7864055I don't know, but as a beg that spent most of the past year grinding them for an average of 2 hours a day I think they only really work if you're already good at construction and anatomy. I didn't see any real improvement by grinding them and just wasted a lot of time. Also the forced time limit of 30 seconds to 2 minutes is retarded, since you just keep making the same mistakes over and over again without thinking.
>>7864055Yeah, the gesture is the foundation of the drawing. Everything else builds on your initial observation and expression. Daily practice at anything makes you better. Just don’t let it be the only part of the procedure you focus on.
>>7864136>>7864210Honestly I'm inclined to agree with you two given the dreadful experience where i witnessed several people show off their before & after of a 6 month gesture drawing challenge they did. (60 1 minute poses everyday for 6 months) The improvement was extremely disappointing. I felt very upset looking at all of that.
>>7864136the fact that it may be a modern definition doesn't mean it isn't a thing
>>7864382>(60 1 minute poses everyday for 6 months)Because that's the drawing equivalent of doing 60 minutes of stretches for 6 months, and then wondering why you can't lift heavier or run longer at the end of it. Only it's not even good stretches - it's like...thumb stretches.A lot of supposedly useful drawing exercises are are exactly like this. Box-drawing and line-drawing is another one. It's stuff that feels safe and approachable and almost like work, but in essence is a way of automating learning and making creative decisions into mere "repetition." Learning by and for meatheads.
>>7864055Yes, I think it's like seeing the shapes in objects, or feeling the form, you just have to trust that it's something your brain will adapt to. It's easy to intellectually understand but actually getting it takes some work. But also have a style/technique to quickly analyze poses just sounds useful. I do think we need to reevaluate introducing this to absolute begs
>>7864382When I started drawing, I only did gestures the first two months. I studied Hampton's method, and after roughly a thousand or so after two months I began doing more serious stuff. Doing gestures as a beginner practice will help you with flow and line control, and it will help you in the long run. Doing 60 1 minute poses for 6 months, though, is insane. They aren't that important, though it helped me immensely. I'm quite satisfied, though my experience is not universal.
>>7864571This can be made more convincing by posting some of your gestures, if you still have them, your work shortly after and your curent work.
>>7864592Sure thing. I'm somewhat active over in the /beg/ and /int/ threads. You can find a good amount of my stuff in there. My method of drawing heads and such is based on Hampton's, this one is essentially a gesture with a drawing on top. It's technically not my most recent work, but I'm at work right now, so this will have to do. I usually always draw from refs, but I like this one, it was fun to draw. I also do full body stuff, but, again, I'm at work.
>>7864055Yes
>>7864136Thank you Gippity-chan
>>7864055Yes, but I don't think you need to grind a ton just 10 x 1 min poses a day as warm up is enough then do anything else like longer figure studies and such.
>>7864401stop making excuses. its because its a fucking meme and it doesn't do shit.
Good gesture lets you get away with slacking in other areas and people love it. I'd say prioritize it
>>7864951>it's because [dumber version of what you just said]
>>7864136oh hey i made something about this recently. https://voca.ro/1b9wLgb7I5Uohappy to see people finally revolting against the worthless dogshit advice we are taught as dogma.
two faggots that rely on ai to express their opinion vs people that post their art and can attest to gesture drawing helping them. gee i wonder
>>7864974One retarded faggot who thinks writing in complete sentences with punctuation is so hard that anyone doing it must be cheating.
>>7864951No
>>7865008Angry
>>7864974Anti-gesture anon here. This is a drawing from my sketchbook (it's pretty smudged, sorry) done entirely from imagination.
>>7864571 >>7864597Great drawinggood for you man keep it up.
>>7865026
>>78650261. You can incorporate gesture into an imagined drawing your making things harder for yourself2. Her left leg is broken and she should see a doctor right away
I do it alongside learning anatomy
>>7865185>Her left leg is brokenI just tried the pose and was able to do it easily.
>>7865195just a lurker, but i’m learning the exact same area right now. (teres minor, infraspinatus, etc) and wow, this covers a lot more than the attenuated vids i’m following. (looks really great)maybe a long shot, but do you happen to have any youtube favorites for anatomy of the upper torso? sorry to bother you.
>>7865208Its been a while, but I followed along ecorche vids by Rey Bustos
>>7864227>>7865195This! Gesture should be learned after line control, then the basic 3d shape anatomy. Everyone keeps saying it's foundational, and yes it is, but dumb people misunderstand that as "gesture should be the very first thing they should learn." when it should be done alongside the shape golem anatomy at the very least and not just the stickman version.
>>7865221thanks so much! you’re very cool>>7864055also for on-topic, i do pretty much everything you can think of op, gestures, anatomy, life drawing, staging+comp, a bunch of initially extremely abstract warmups that layer complexity, imagination stuff and yeah. to me it’s all good.
>>7865195>>7865226I felt its unfortunate that a lot of people have the idea that you needed to learn only one thing at a time and not move on to something else until you masters it, but something like gesture, at least from observation. is important compliment to analytic construction of figures.
>>7865026>done entirely from imagination.clearly
>>7865026>anti-gesture anoni can tell
>>7865245>>7865246nta but how do you feel knowing that you reply so incredibly predictably that it's not certain you're sentient. like you literally cant resist the lowest hanging dunk
>>7865249stfu samefag
>>7865008feel free to explain where you found that quote from the esteemed artist John Gadsby Chapman and how you wrote it down with all those em dashes
>>7864055>does drawing help you improve drawing?Yeah, I wonder
>>7865439Or maybe you could do a reverse search before accusing others. I figure wherever OP found it a professional who would know how to use an em dash wrote it and OP copy pasted the quote.
>>7865448>>7864061clearly not the question. Its important whether doing gesture practice specifically is more helpful than drawing something thats actually engaging to draw which is kind of a toss-up
>>7865439You again? Haven't we been over this before about the em dashes? To answer your questions:>where you found that quote from the esteemed artist John Gadsby ChapmanEasy. Some people read books. John Gadsby Chapman wrote a book titled "The American Drawing-Book." I actually purchased a scan of this book many years ago, then had it printed and bound for myself. Nowadays you can find it on Internet Archive and other places, or order a printed copy from Amazon. Anyway, I read the book.>how you wrote it down with all those em dashesAnon, here's a little secret. If you're on a Windows PC, try holding Alt and pressing 0, 1, 5, 1. That's how you make an em dash. I've done copy editing for work, so I know this. But in this case, I didn't even have to do it that way. I remembered the passage from Chapman's, and found it using a search on the text-only version at Internet Archive, then copied and pasted, em dashes and all (I did have to remove some extra spaces and paragraph breaks).Mystery solved! I doubt ChatGPT would know much about such a little-known artist.
It helps 100% but for learning body proportions, i think it matters more for women than men personally
>>7865245>>7865246He who has yet to pyw is invalid!Draw thy gestures of opposition and I shall judge thee if thy argument be worthy!he posted his work so his opinion has more weight to it than just randos who said nu-uh. unless you guys can back it up?
>>7865026yeah ok, now it all makes sense.
>>7865487>guysIt's one person. You're better off ignoring someone who doesn't say anything substantive and doesn't post work. He just craves attention.
>>7865026Her heel is clipping inside her hidden ass cheek?
>>7864090The artist of the past had pretty stiff figures, few came close to glen Keane's dynamic work.
>>7865631I think Glen Keane is brilliant, but plenty of artists in the past drew and painted very dynamic figures. You're kind of comparing apples to oranges. Glen is an animator drawing very stylized, simplified anatomy.
>>7864055snake oil to keep you permabeg and dependent on Prococks next installment
>>7865639>plenty of artists in the past drew and painted very dynamic figuresI don't know.. feels like 99% are drawn from posed models irl and lack energy animators and gesture practicers give their work
>>7865690No way, those Renaissance and Rococo artists did a lot of work from imagination. They painted the domes of cathedrals with figures flying through the clouds. Not really practical to pose models for that. A lot of modern illustration is heavily referenced from photos.
>>7865700>A lot of modern illustration is heavily referenced from photos.photos capturing motion. we have that luxury today, you can study the gesture of a figure in motion now.
>>7865717A gesture is something you do with your hands. I do a lot of gesturing when I'm driving.
>>7865643schizopost
what even is gesture? timed drawing? fast drawings? isn't that croquis or just sketching?gimme real answers none of that fucking "capturing movement" nonsense
>>7866321Don't hold your breath. The answer you get will depend on the teacher, and will almost always be something intangible that you have to "feel."
>>7866321capture the swoopy lines without details
>>7866321>>7866331Here are the instructions from Kimon Nicolaides, who coined the term "gesture drawing" in his posthumously-published book, The Natural Way to Draw (1941):>The model is asked to take a very active pose for a minute or less and to change without pause from one pose to the next. If you have no model - or, frequently, even if you do - you should go to some place where you are likely to see people actively moving about. A playground, a football game, a bargain basement, a busy street, a lumber mill, a swimming hole, a building under construction, will give you excellent opportunities to study gesture.>As the model takes the pose, or as the people you watch move, you are to draw, letting your pencil swing around the paper almost at will, being impelled by the sense of the action you feel. Draw rapidly and continuously in a ceaseless line, from top to bottom, around and around, without taking your pencil of the paper. Let the pencil roam, reporting the gesture.>YOU SHOULD DRAW, NOT WHAT THE THING LOOKS LIKE, NOT EVEN WHAT IT IS, BUT WHAT IT IS DOING. Feel how the figure lifts or droops - pushes forward here - pulls back there - pushes out here - drops down easily there. Suppose that the model takes the pose of a fighter with fists clenched and jaw thrust forward angrily. Try to draw the actual thrust of the jaw, the clenching of the hand. A drawing of prize fighters should show the push, from foot to fist, behind their blows that makes them hurt.It goes on like this for a while...>Sometimes students ask whether they should think of gesture in this or that or the other way. My answer to that is that you should rely on sensation rather than thought. Simply respond with your muscles to what the model is doing as you watch, and let your pencil record that response automatically, without deliberation.So yeah, "gesture drawing" is about as scientifically rigorous as communing with your dead aunt using a ouija board.
>>7864055Why would you ever ask this board anything? You can find endless videos from industry professionals talking about gesture drawing. I remember Proko has a lightbox video interviewing like 20 pros and they all talk about gesture drawing. Why the fuck would you come here? You're reading giant paragraphs of utter nonsense written by people who draw shitty anime porn. I dont get it
>>7866342>industry professionals>ProkoWhat about all the people who created art in the years before "gesture drawing" was taught? Almost everyone agrees that the best artists ever to depict the human form are the ancient Greeks, the Italian Renaissance masters like Michelangelo and Raphael, and the 19th century masters like Bouguereau. As has already been stated, nobody who wrote about the craft of making art before the 20th century ever recommended anything like what's suggested here >>7866340. So the value of this practice is worth questioning, its widespread adoption today notwithstanding. Maybe there is survivorship bias at play. Also, not all professionals advocate gesture drawing. I personally knew one who dismissed it as nonsense, and his drawings were absolutely incredible.
LOL
>>7866368The more you look, the more you see how fucked up this is. Beginners are lost, confused, frustrated but feel like they need permission to stop doing "gestures." Everybody who responds tells them they should persevere, but also gives a different definition of gesture drawing, a different procedure to follow. It's nuts.
>>7866355how many times do we have to tell you that it doesn't matter that the word combination "gesture drawing" wasn't used back in the renaissance. michalangelo and raphael both did gesture drawings as we understand them now
>>7866459No, they didn't. Zero evidence for this. Read the definition provided by Nicolaides. Gesture drawing is not rough sketching or compositional sketching. Gesturecels keep moving the goalpost and changing the meaning of words to defend their dogma.
Part of the problem is that the meaning of "gesture drawing" is even more fluid and open to interpretation than the meaning of "art." I literally just watched an artist on Instagram drawing stick figures with little circles for the joints, taking his sweet time and consulting the reference, and calling this "gesture drawing." Somebody else says the "gesture" is the line of action. Well, I can find a line of action (which is really just an implied line or curve that connects parts of the figure) without scribbling all over and doing everything else associated with "gesture." It's no wonder so many beginners are lost with this. You can't succeed at something that has no fixed definition. Even the original definition is all about "just feeling it."
>>7866368that's the exact reason why one should never use youtube to learn anything. everyone gives their own shitty advice that are either inapplicable, incomplete, or contradictory to one another. always use comprehensive resources like books or courses.
>>7864055It shouldn't be grinded in isolation every day. You need to think about gesture (or more specifically the things that make up gesture like tilt, weight distribution, and flow of the body/limbs) and incorporate it as a PART of your overall approach to drawing the figure. It's an important step, but still just one step.
>>7866408>>7866497Humpton's gesture videos are braindead easy to understand. How retarded does somebody have to be to get filtered by them?
>>7866550I never did Hampton's gesture videos because I don't want to draw like Hampton. But even if they are easy, does that make them worth doing? And how is a beginner supposed to know that Hampton is the one that gets gesture right? I don't think these teachers are doing it out of malice, but they really should be upfront about the fact that they're using their own definitions of "gesture" so as not to further confuse the begs.
>>7866368People taking Proko's advice on anything will never not be hilarious to me. Any /beg/ with a modicum of appeal will put together something nicer than anything Proko has ever done. The fact that he's always the first thing that pops up when you search "how to draw" or similar is a shame. I wonder how many poor souls he's led astray
>>7865241>gestures>people standing up>people on a 90 degree angle>hands up hands down>dude sex lmao>barely any depth to the drawings, most exist in one or two planesWhat a complete fucking waste of time.
>>7864055>Google translate whatever you want to learn to japanese>Youtube search the results>Learn from the real mastersIt's that easy op
>>7866645Right, that webm is literally just regular drawing. But let's call it gesture!
>>7866650gesture are not ~special~ drawings. >>7866645well, it captures the gesture of the pose, it doesn't need to be anything fancy, it just needs to be done in 90-180 seconds.
>>7864055Frazetta drew them.
>>7866661 Yeah they are, they are called gestures because they are....LE GESTURING. Those are just standing still like a mannequin.
>>7866661This is kind of a pointless discussion, because apparently gesture drawing is whatever anyone decides it is. I must admit I've never seen any instructor claim that a careful, deliberate line drawing of a figure with the muscles delineated constitutes gesture drawing.
>>7866666you do realize they were done in 120 seconds right?
>>7866662I will give you that those at least *resemble* the examples in Nicolaides's book. We can't really say more than that, because Frazetta was a master of the figure by then, and that is obviously a rough sketch of an idea for a painting or other finished illustration. There's really nothing controversial about that. What's controversial is the idea that beginning art students should do this: >>7866340
>>7866672So that's your definition of gesture drawing, just drawing quickly? Does this mean every figure drawn by Kim Jung Gi was a gesture drawing?
>>7866673You just have to lay down some rough lines to build on at first, I don't see why people are so hung up on the exact method. I use something like bridgman's method.
>>7866675a gesture drawing is meant to capture the pose of a figure. In practice for the purpose of learning, you are being timed and this is done from observation so you can cut out all unnecessary elements of capturing that pose. Drawing by Kim Jung Gi are more deliberate than what I was doing, he didn't needed to construct, but I wouldn't expect anybody to aspire to do that, maybe if I draw 10 times more than I do now.
>>7866698a figure is a figure, a figure might be gesturing or not. Gestures help you solve harder poses and make your toons look more fluid, figures don't. Here, easy way to see it you stupid mongoloid.Hand gesturing >communication technique that visually conveys emotions, intentions, and information with the movement of fingers and hands.Figure Gesturing - ????????????????
>>7866698>>7866708Also please spend more time on them, spamming something doesn't look attractive. Rather have 1-5 good gesture drawings a day than 1000.If you can't make them look good then what's the point right? visual medium and everything.
>>7866708drawing something because me no word good. show me your gesture bruh>>7866709the point isn't about making a good presentation, the point is about repeated practice in observation and reproduction, and do it as many times as possible.
>>7866719>he point isn't about making a good presentationI disagree, that's just a shitty juvenile way of seeing things, only helps protecting the ego of the less fortunate but doesn't look good in practice. I feel like you are doing the same gestures over and over for the same reason, your entire train of thought, perchance it is because you lack good material? mayhapsdobeitI tire of this, not my job to unclog the unwilling or have discussions with stupid people.
yes, you should spent time making more drawings.
>>7866731try actual body gestures
>>7866731Doing shit drawings is acceptable because you are not supposed to challenge yourself It's ok if they are not gesturing that much because it's just supposed to re-inforce what you already know(?)Never waste time drawingBut don't waste that much time not drawingGesture drawing doesn't need to gesture, a standing figure is a gesture (might unironically be correct, lmao)And the golden award goes to:>Doesn't matter if the gesturing is incorrect, you are just supposed to spam it for observation purposesDoesn't matter if the gesturing is incorrect, you are just supposed to spam it for observation purposesThis is why you never use a tripcode. Idiocy that will be impossible to forget. Rent free m'fraid.
>>7866756none sense, of course you are suppose to try to get it correct, that's the point of practicing it from observation.
>>7866756holy fucking good morning sir
>>7864055>does shuffling the card deck make me better at poker
>>7864090imagine being at this level of confident retardness
the only reason I am going to waste my time replying to absolute fuck brained retard talking shit about gesture is because I don't want any more retards with garbage fundamentals shitting up this board which will eventually cause a negative impact on my experience in this board.>gesture drawing only from Nicolaides in1941a liehogarth talked about gesture before nicolaideshttps://www.gutenberg.org/files/51459/51459-h/51459-h.htmRenaissance artists often did croquis (pic related) that were supposed to be fast, capture the movement and aesthetic without construction, pic relatedthis was already using the terms gesture to describe what nicolaides systematized in idea of the temple of painting which is a 1590 bookgesture is the single most important skill you motherfuckers will practice in your pathetic artistic lives and you will be able to get away with shitty anatomy and construction if your gesture is good enough because gesture gives appealjust dont do retarded things like >>7864382 and just do a couple of them as warmup before any practice and use them to sketch ideas and memorize scenes and you will be goodotherwise you will end up like this /beg/ >>7865026 who does not get away with that stiff ass unproportionate drawing with shitty anatomy because he can't do gesture
