What exactly is A Gesture Drawing?

[Hazamataz]

Exactly what is gesture drawing?

Why is it called a "gesture" drawing.
One tutorial decribed it as being to do with the hand movements you make, gestural movements.
http://www.mmwindowtoart.com/gesturedrawing.html
But I don't like the results on their, so I'm reluctant to follow it

Some talk about looking once, and then drawing what you remeber, some talk about flashing the eyes back and forth.

Why is it that there so helpful for improving in drawing? Just how helpful and for what?

Is it better to keep the hand moving, or be selective in the lines you choose?

How quick is it? Is it good to time the drawings?

Details, too little and it looks crap, too much and it looks crap and takes loads of time. hmmm.

What everyone seems to agree on, is that it is about capturing the "essence". This is a very annoying way to describe it, although I think I started to grasp it

Is it more focused on flat 2d shapes, or 3D?

When I see trees and their movements, I like to think of them as a sound. Shooting up trunks go SCHUUM, or twirly leave going fltrfltrfltr, and this seems to get the most satisfying results for me.

Any thoughts?

[figure2]

Gesture drawings are usually quick simple sketches that contain the bare minimum of information to suggest shape, pose and movement. The web site you cite has an odd definition of gesture drawings as they are not usually associated with still life objects. The most common gesture drawings are usually from quick life sketches, usually 1 or 2-minute poses where you only have time to capture a suggestion of the pose. Some of the best examples of gesture drawings from this site are jasonj05's life sketches (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=422451&postcount=32).

[briggsy@ashtons]

As I understand it, the idea of gesture drawing in the modern sense largely owes its origin to Kimon Nicolaides, whose teachings and exercises were published posthumously in the book The Natural Way To Draw around 1940. (Robert Henri in The Art Spirit refers to the struggle to introduce short poses a generation or so earlier). You should study Nicolaides' description of gesture drawing, but don't miss some important elaborations of the basic exercise that come later in the book, especially one called, I think, Gesture Drawing with Anatomy. Judging by your last sentence I think you will discover in Nicolaides a long lost soulmate!

There is a recent thread in the Lounge (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=51554) on this subject with many good contributions. I have three posts there that touch on some of the questions you ask here. I'm happy to add more, but maybe look at that first.

Thanks for the link to those lovely gesture drawings figure2

[Elwell]

Why is it called a "gesture" drawing.
One tutorial decribed it as being to do with the hand movements you make, gestural movements.
http://www.mmwindowtoart.com/gesturedrawing.html
But I don't like the results on their, so I'm reluctant to follow it
Good call. Those are awful and their definition/instructions are bizarre.

[mentler]

The only thing that I would add is to not think of gesture as an exercise simple to warm up or loosen up <> it is the first step in the drawing process regardless of the time frame <> many teachers who obviously did not read or did not understand Nicolaides' book have totally abused the process treating it as a warm-up exercise unrelated to a longer drawing.

The most important, the most critical and ultimately the most difficult thing is drawing from life is to capture the action or structural rhythms of a pose.

If you are not successful in capturing the action your drawing is doomed.

I see many go through the gesture drawings of 1 or 2 minutes and then when the have 5 minutes or more they go back to doing a tedious contour drawing starting with some detail and wasting a tremendous amount of time.

I have totally gotten rid of the word gesture in my teaching replacing it with the concept of a short pose. Emphasizing that it is a start of a drawing.

[Elwell]

Mentler has said everything I was going to.
Also, this is from the thread Briggsy linked to, but I thought it was worth quoting here for emphasis:
Quick poses are really practice at STARTING drawings in the best way, like a runner or a swimmer practicing starts for a race. You should feel focussed and intent, but not rushed - no more or less rushed than in the first minute of a longer drawing.

Begin each drawing, one-minute or otherwise, by focussing on seeing the flat, 2D SHAPE of your subject, and seeing the WHOLE shape before the details. There is a natural progression in drawing: you need to begin to establish (1) shape before you can show (2) construction, and you need construction before you can model (3) surface form.

[Hazamataz]

Woah..those drawings are incredible, the sweepss... I'll observe those carefully.

Thanks for the information everyone,its really been helpful. Mentler you have probably saved me a huge amount that i might have spent on drawings with poor foundations.

In this case you can build you house on the sand, as long as captures the movment, and rythym of the house as it sinks. :p

So in which case, gestures could be practiced daily on objects in the world, preferably those with movment of some kind. Simply to encourage looking for the rhythms in the world, and stay expressive and in a drawing frame of mind.

There are some of my attempts in my sketchbook
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=592279&postcount=9

[Dizon]

Dont ask yourself what a gesture drawing is, but rather, what the gesture itself is. All figure drawings have gestures, whether it's a short or long pose.

The gesture is the action of the figure. There's always a rhythm to the body and this is what makes a gesture. But inorder to get a good gesture, you have to consider other things like alignments, a sense of gravity and weight, etc. These things unify the human figure and thus gives it a rhythm.

[Angry Old Artist]

This is my first time logging on to this site. I am thrilled to have finally found a site I can identify with.

To me the gesture drawing is the first and most improtant step towards a finished work. I agree completely with those who have said it is more than only warm-up practice and the act of gesture drawing can be applied to more than simply live models.

If I can just add, for me the end product of the gesture drawing is a moving away from my ego governing my drawing to attaining that intuitive response of drawing which allows me to be more a participant in the final work than the sole creator of the work.

Gesture drawing teaches the eye to see and teaches the response to be knowing, honest and "thoughtless".