Gesture is NOT about "drawing the figure" in a literal sense. Follow the forms, but DRAW THE MOVEMENT. I think gesture drawing is one of the most important concepts for a beginner figure drawing student to learn, because it's just so much harder to access later on when you've ingrained rules about proportion and structure. Hope this video was useful, let me know if you have any thoughts about how to draw the gesture, if it's something you enjoy or if you prefer to focus on getting details and proportion accurate in your work? ❤
Something opened, something affiliated my intuition about how I personally want to draw, watching you, hearing you. I literally have tears in my eyes. I am totally self taught but after 2 years of watching people draw ovals and sticks and fill them in, only to produce lifeless robotic (though very precise!) figures. I KNEW that this was not the direction I wanted to move. I can’t thank you enough for your generosity, sensitivity and talent. I have subscribed and look forward to coming along on your path to expression and feeling.
Wow, thank you so much for this comment. This makes it all worthwhile to hear that you resonate with this approach and appreciate the video!! Thank you so much. I know how hard it can be to be self-directed and self-taught; I was lucky to have a life drawing teacher, and in these videos i just hope to pass on the knowledge as best I can. I always say figure drawing is not only about proportion and "photo likeness" is mostly about creativity and self-expression. Excited for you to be on this journey!! Thanks for subscribing! :)
OMG, THANK YOU!!! I needed this info and explanation so seriously much! It happened to me too! Being too hasty, trying to draw a more or less perfect… figure…🙄😬 And then get dissapointed at myself and feeling failure. Thanks! 🙏❤️
Ah, so happy to hear that! I'm really glad this clicked for you - it's not about drawing the figure in a literal sense, more about drawing that feeling or energy you see/feel. It doesn't have to be perfect, and naturally you'll want to "follow the figure" as you draw, but I think at least having that understanding as your starting point makes all the difference!! Keep me posted, let me know if you see improvements!
Oh wow, what an awesome comment! Thank you 😊 that's really nice to hear, I think it might also have to do with the medium... charcoal is particularly expressive and its really nice to push the charcoal around and get different marks out of it. Really appreciate you watching, thanks so much!
Great to get to follow along your life drawing session like this, and it's so true: the more detail and rendering you add, the stiffer the drawing tends to become. Even starting out with a pretty wild gesture, the more things you add it's like you're constantly fighting that tendency to straighten things out and flatten them down... :)
Ah yes!! I totally relate. I can say that over time you do start to learn when to scale back and be selective, and leave well enough alone! .. that comes with practice and with getting to know what it is you are choosing to look at (at first, it feels like you have to take everything in, but observation with practice can be discerning as well). I'm so glad to hear you like the life drawing sessions, thanks so much!! That means a lot to get your feedback, I really appreciate it :) thanks for watching!
Hi Andreas! Wow, thank you very much, I appreciate your feedback it's really good to hear that. Personally I learnt "how to draw" from watching my figure drawing teacher draw, when she did demos - there is so much value in seeing the way others make their marks and approach their drawing, that you can take and incorporate into your own work. Thanks for watching! :)
This is quite different to how Nicolaides describes gesture drawing - he says to feel the area of the body and then constantly keep the hand moving to put that feeling onto the paper - and he uses the word "furious" to describe how to do it. To me, "furious" means quick. Nicolaides writes on page 14 "draw rapidly and continuously in a ceaseless line..."
Yes I agree with you. Working with a continuous line is an excellent technique to unlock gesture drawing. But most beginners, especially if they are drawing from photos - which 90% of UA-cam figure drawing audience is doing - tend to draw in outlines, they draw the literal, 2D version of the figure, and try to do so "quickly": in other words, they aim to make an outline with all the limbs and features represented. And this is a totally wrong way to think about gesture. it results in a stylized, generic figurine and does not unlock a true artistic response in the person drawing. As you point out, gesture is about capturing the feeling. I guess, in this video, my intention was to reach that "UA-cam audience" by distinguishing the approach to gesture that so many people are missing - the idea that you do not have to draw the full figure in 1 min (ie quickly). I teach students in irl workshops how to "do" gesture drawing by using exactly the technique you mention, fast continuously lines, and it's very effective for freeing up and for understanding the difference between drawing a feeling and drawing the figure in a stylized way. But for me, it's still a technique to get you to that point, and like any technique can be dropped once you have arrived at a connection or understanding of the approach - that is understanding how to draw the non-visual aspect of the figure, or as you say, to draw the feeling. Thank you for this considered and insightful comment, I really appreciate it - really good for a discussion that is sorely lacking on UA-cam.
@@Drawing-Life Edit: Oh, and this is my other channel - I get confused as I have two separate browsers open connected to different gmail accounts and different names. I am Max. Thank you for the reply. I am a beginner to this, and it's very confusing as there are so many people saying different things and it's often difficult to know in which direction to go. So it's useful to have that clarification. I can understand why Nicolaides' instructions might be difficult for people, but I think if anyone has done any acting, for example, then we can understand how "putting yourself into someone's body", ie, pretending to become them, actually produces those feelings in one's own body. There is actually neuroscience behind this. In the brain, there are things called mirror neurons which fire up in response to others' behaviours/postures/emotions etc and produce that same feeling in you, but if a person is strongly head-centric or as people say - in their head - then this gets sort of cut off. For this to function, the nervous systems in our bodies and our awareness have to be synced up. In our modern world of screens, overthinking and generally fast-paced lifestyle, this gets short-circuited. I'm not actually an actor, but I do know some actors who have described this. I learnt this process of putting one's own mind into the being (for want of a better word) of another through various spiritual practices tied to Tibetan Buddhism - in which one imagines oneself as someone else, and the transformation in how literally everything appears and feels is quite remarkable. I used the acting example earlier as I think it's more accessible to people, and it is through other practitioners of these Tibetan arts who were actors that I learned about the correlation. From my perspective, and you touched on this in your excellent comment, Nicolaides seems to be using this approach primarily to loosen people up and get us connecting our bodies to our environments without the blocking filter of the head-centric analytic consciousness. Would you say that's correct? If it is, then the man really was a genius, and I can't wait to get further into his book. I wish there were modern courses or at least youtube series that were wholly based on his book so that we could get led through his programme. It is quite difficult to only work through a book with limited examples and no feedback. Anyway, I love your channel, and I can certainly feel Nicolaides' vibe in how you do things. Thanks.
@@danielthechampionoftheworl8490 Thank you so much for your reply Max. This is a deeply fascinating topic that you have brought up and I think your analysis of this mysterious process is hugely insightful - the analogy of the actor is perfect, and in my limited practice of Tibetan Buddhist meditation the idea of swapping self and other is equally relevant and useful. Thank you for sharing this, this will definitely resonate with many people who read this. I lately have been thinking a lot about right brain / left brain processes for creative exploration. Essentially, in the same way that you describe it - our brain power throughout the day is constantly focused on logical, left brain processes, and for creative work, we really should be in tune with more intuitive, creative and right brain processes. In other words, trying to make a gesture drawing using an analytical approach - saying things like "this must be the leg, and this line must be a line of action, or this line must go here" - is counter productive entirely. Rather, when making a gesture drawing the emphasis should be fully on just responding, not analyzing. You're so right - there are simply too many conflicting ideas and even definitions of gesture drawing here on UA-cam and across the internet that it's really no wonder people get frustrated. It seems like everyone who is making content says that their idea is the right one and others are wrong. I think it's really problematic especially for anyone trying to learn figure drawing, because in my personal drawing experience learning Nicolaides' approach did not only transform the way i understood drawing, but as a result it changed my life. That's why I'm so passionate about trying to explain this. The key to all of this, and I think the main reason that there are so many conflicting definitions online, is to experience drawing anything (the figure or any subject) from life. That's where you can fully understand what gesture drawing is. Only using photo reference wont' give that experience. I do think that you can bring that experience into work based on photos, but fundamentally, it must be first understood in the context of drawing from life . Great discussion!! Thanks so much for your feedback and insight on this. You've got me inspired to do more Nicolaides' focused tutorials. I would love to teach a course on the book, but as I said, I think it's tricky to do so without a live model. I agree he was a genius!
My name is actually Daniel - Max is an alter ego - born out of an in-joke with some friends about going Maximum De Niro (in Goodfellas). I know that many actors actually experience physical symptoms, often illnesses, and many times mental illness, because they have fully gone into a character which is, let's say, less than wholesome... My experience within Tibetan Buddhism is within Vajrayana, or tantra, which is not exotic sex, as many people think - tantra means "continuation", and refers to our energy - ie, our emotion, our feeling capacity, our sensation. In these practices, you "transform" your self-concept into the being of what they call a "deity" - which is really an idealised concept. The important thing is that this transformation is not mental - it is a felt reality - hence tantra/energy. The interesting thing about this is that these practices cannot be undertaken until you have received an initiation into the practice - this initiation is really an introduction how to do it, but it has to be done in person by a master who has fully realised the practice. I think this relates to what you were saying about the importance of life drawing, rather than from a picture of a model. Being in the presence of that energy directly has a direct impact on your nervous system/mind, and can directly evoke sensation/feeling in you, in a way that bypasses the left brain, to use that terminology. There is some discussion now that maybe these initiations can be done online, but it has to be live. I've always found that the in-person method is many times more powerful and effective. I think it can be possible online, but a person has to be really tuned in and sensitive to what's going on. It's certainly far less easy. I've had a look through some of the other comments on this video and I think many people intuitively understand that this approach is something special. I've been wanting to learn to draw because I felt that I needed to somehow counter this massive left-brain dominance of our society and I can feel that it has diminished my quality of life - it's sort of like in those Harry Potter films where those weird dark ghosty things suck the life out of people. Anyway, to my dismay, when I started looking around at ways of drawing, it was so uninspiring and very left-brainy - the method that I think is called construction. I see some others have mentioned this too in the comments. I'm sure that if people really understood the nuances of Nicolaides' approach and could grasp the difference between this "natural way to draw", connecting via your essence, rather than via your brain, there would be huge swathes of people beating a path to door of the person delivering it. It seems to get right to the heart of what so many people are missing nowadays but just can't quite articulate it or are just unaware of what it is that is lacking.
Wowww!! That's so amazing to hear! I'm so happy, this makes my day. 😊The right approach to gesture is something that will constantly support how you develop your drawing technique. Hope you enjoy working with this for a long time to come.
Your gesture drawing is an inspiration to me. I am learning so much by watching your videos. I am currently taking a once a week 3 hour life drawing class and I really feel that I have improved my response to the model from your instruction,
Hi Sarah, that is so wonderful to hear, thank you so much for this comment! I'm so happy that you find these videos a support in your drawing, keep me posted, let me know how you get on with life drawing!! Enjoy the journey 😊❤
Hi Siobhan, the part about mark setting...I will remember this tot take in to my life drawing classes .... I have been growing in my drawing skills since I follow your posts. Very gratefull for this. And also learning to follow my impressions, without the stress of timed poses. Great work and thanks again!!!! Kind regards from Antwerp...
I'm so glad to hear that! That's wonderful that you can see a difference in your work. Drawing from life rather than from photos always has an impact on your drawing, so its great that you can get to life drawing classes. Definitely don't worry about making a full drawing in a short timed pose, as you say follow the impression that you see. There are always the longer poses to make a full drawing.
That's so awesome!! I'm really glad this made sense, and I hope it makes sense in life drawing tomorrow! I recommend the book "The Natural Way to Draw" as a support for anyone going to life drawing - not necessarily to follow the schedules and exercises in it, but just as a reading material it's very useful. Let me know how you get on!
Im drawing my mother daily and have been looking for guidance to capture her more fluidly. I appreciate your drawing style, suggestions and tips. It is also great being able to watch you draw, and see how you see as your drawing emerges :) Thanks for sharing your insight! Im loving your channel!
Thanks Rachel! That means so much to hear your feedback. What a beautiful practice to draw your mother every day, i think that must be such a wonderful experience. I can highly recommend a book called The Natural Way to Draw by Kimon Niccolaides as a resource for gesture drawing, and a more responsive and observation-based approach to drawing. Thanks for watching these videos!! :)
@@Drawing-Life I am very fortunate to be able to usher my mom in her end journey. She captured stories in her art, something I’d like to emulate:) I ordered the book you recommended. Thank you for your reply.
Thank you. I am interested in gesture drawing people playing golf and am new to figure drawing. Could you point me in right direction please as to best way to start the golfer figures please?
Golfing figures will have really strong line of actions ... I would suggest watching my recent video "How to See the Gesture in Any Pose" for advice on how to capture a pose such as a golf swing etc. ua-cam.com/video/jx5d8KC9YO0/v-deo.html
It's a practice, think of it like a drawing drill, it's not going to make sense right away, work with it over time. I would also suggest using it as a way to draw abstractly, that can be the best way to loosen up and get confident in your lifework. Doesn't have to be a recognizable figure. Some people will tell you it's not for beginners, but trust me it's essential part of developing your drawing. Ok, last advice - it really helps to draw from life, if you can go to life drawing then it will help hugely. Keep me posted! and thanks for watching :)
Youre too kind! thanks for saying so ... mostly these drawings don't go anywhere after a drawing session, plus they're all drawn on newsprint which doesn't frame well at all! It's so thin that it's really difficult to frame! But, this comment makes my day, thanks for saying that. And thanks for watching!! ❤
I love your technique and videos, bought your Udemy courses as well but i still struggle too much doing gestures which i find magical and inspiring. How do i know where to place the "c" or the "s" when following the flow? I end up with sausages... Thank you for sharing this!
Hi Luis, ah great to hear that you took the Figure Drawing Course. If you are still struggling with gesture drawing, I have 2 resources that will help you: 1). check out the Udemy course I published specifically on this technique: tinyurl.com/yhtht83a ....that will certainly help you to know where and when to place your gesture marks. Regarding C or S.... watch this video: ua-cam.com/video/jx5d8KC9YO0/v-deo.html Then, if you still feel that the drawing is stuck, please send me a message via Udemy, we can discuss your drawings and where the issue is!! I'm there every day, so feel free to contact me and if you can send me your drawing that would be great. It would be great to feel confident in your gesture drawing because it really is a powerful drawing technique so I would love to help you get there. S
@@Drawing-Life didnt expect your reply so soon! I have the udemy course that you've suggested and will also follow the YT one. I'll reach you out through Udemy, you'd be my life saviour if you do boost me there, i have the feeling everything starts at Gesture drawing once the fundamentals are there.
I've tried gesture drawing sessions several times and I found myself totally lost, I only wasted tons of paper for nothing because those exercises never helped me improve and I've never understood all that talk about "draw what you feel" stuff. What does that even mean?, what if I don't feel anything when looking at my reference?, does that mean I can't draw? I've been trying to learn to draw for years, but gesture drawing is so ambiguous, confusing and frustrating.
That is super frustrating, and more so because there are so many conflicting voices and opinions about this one tiny aspect of figure drawing! I've got a really LONG answer here for you, because i think this is such an important question - and I know others might find this useful too. So sorry for the length, but here is my advice: Draw what you feel means draw what you see as the feeling of the pose, not what you feel (although you will eventually get to that place too). Your entire approach to drawing has to be completely different when you practice gesture drawing, this is the whole point how I teach it - far too many people tell you to draw the full figure with simple, quick lines (in order to have a readable figure) and to be honest that's not even relevant to learning figure drawing, and neither does it help you in any way to understand how to draw the feeling of the pose. Trying to draw the figure fast in 1 minute with simplified shapes to conform to a figurine is in my opinion a waste of time, and a frustrating pursuit for most people. It gives you nothing in terms of development other than drawing generic shapes quickly. This is not what true gesture drawing is about. I will also add that trying to teach someone gesture drawing from only photo reference, is incredibly tricky and that's why most people revert to drawing simplified shapes for the body, instead of teaching how to draw the feeling of a pose - it's hard to experience that in a photo reference. Instead, if you focus fully on NOT trying to draw "the figure" and look at the pose in terms of "what is the feeling that I see in this pose" : tension? expansion? grace? power? light? heavy? twisted? long? scrunched up? stretched out? .... you will not only be able to make marks that express those feeling words, but you will finally have reached something in yourself that is the key to being an artist - expressing feeling. Surely that is the single most important reason to do art. Sure, we can learn construction of the figure for commercial work, and in animation and design we need to do that, but that's a separate exercise, and ultimately the entire purpose of drawing is to express something that you can't say with words. Gesture helps you to get to that place, and figure drawing (more importantly Life Drawing - drawing the model from life) is a perfect practice. I'm not saying you have to do gesture drawing - you certainly don't if you think it's not for you, but I'm very sure that when we talk about true gesture drawing (not stick figures or simplified, generic symbols) that is something that can really improve your drawing overall, and your understanding of what drawing is about. My advice is to stick with it, you certainly have the passion for figure drawing and are willing to push yourself to reach deeper levels in your art, so try to approach it from a different angle. I would suggest that you use scribble drawing and searching lines to make a drawing that might look like a mess of lines, but is more connected to your reply or response to what you see as the feeling of your subject. Check out Mad Charcoal's UA-cam channel for inspiration. I will also say, draw from life! Even if it's just people in a cafe, looking out the window drawing people walking, or even draw plants and trees to practice gesture. Everything that you look at has an inherent gesture that you can start to recognize. Long winded answer, but hopefully this helps you and someone else who reads it! ❤
@@Drawing-Life I'm really grateful to you for taking your valuable time to give a detailed explanation. I know the importance of gesture drawing and for a while I was really bitter about my inability to understand it. I've been trying for years and despite that I wanted to create drawings with the human figure, I've made peace with the idea that there 's something, maybe a kind of sensitivity that is needed to create with a pencil, something that I unfortunately don't have. So it's time for me to move on, but don't delete the answer you wrote, I think it's very valuable and a lot of aspiring artists will find it incredibly useful. Thanks again, lots of love for you and keep up with the good work 😄
Another super video. Thanks so much. I'm watching from San Antonio, Texas, USA. I'm wondering, can I practice gesture drawing with a simple ballpoint pen? I've been liking the scribble technique. Scribble with ballpoint pen whilst doing gesture drawing practice. Hmmm...
Hi Rich! Yes, that's how I first started exploring gesture! with a ballpoint pen, using scribble marks. It's a wonderful drawing tool, and can actually be really versatile and give you a range of tones and marks. Plus I love the fluid, easy quality of the lines. So, yes! Experiment away! that's what it's all about ... keep me posted how you get on. So cool to hear you're in San Antonio! thanks for watching and leaving a comment :)
Thank you 😢 was really sad tonight because I didn’t know what to do in my gesture session, now everything just seems to click 😭😭😭 , gesture for now is describing a pose to you not using words but lines 😫.
Gesture is NOT about "drawing the figure" in a literal sense. Follow the forms, but DRAW THE MOVEMENT.
I think gesture drawing is one of the most important concepts for a beginner figure drawing student to learn, because it's just so much harder to access later on when you've ingrained rules about proportion and structure. Hope this video was useful, let me know if you have any thoughts about how to draw the gesture, if it's something you enjoy or if you prefer to focus on getting details and proportion accurate in your work? ❤
Something opened, something affiliated my intuition about how I personally want to draw, watching you, hearing you. I literally have tears in my eyes. I am totally self taught but after 2 years of watching people draw ovals and sticks and fill them in, only to produce lifeless robotic (though very precise!) figures. I KNEW that this was not the direction I wanted to move. I can’t thank you enough for your generosity, sensitivity and talent. I have subscribed and look forward to coming along on your path to expression and feeling.
Wow, thank you so much for this comment. This makes it all worthwhile to hear that you resonate with this approach and appreciate the video!! Thank you so much. I know how hard it can be to be self-directed and self-taught; I was lucky to have a life drawing teacher, and in these videos i just hope to pass on the knowledge as best I can. I always say figure drawing is not only about proportion and "photo likeness" is mostly about creativity and self-expression. Excited for you to be on this journey!! Thanks for subscribing! :)
Being a senior artist myself your lessons have helped me tremendously. Thank you.
Beautiful work and instruction, Siobhan
Thanks! I really appreciate this :)
OMG, THANK YOU!!! I needed this info and explanation so seriously much! It happened to me too! Being too hasty, trying to draw a more or less perfect… figure…🙄😬 And then get dissapointed at myself and feeling failure. Thanks! 🙏❤️
Ah, so happy to hear that! I'm really glad this clicked for you - it's not about drawing the figure in a literal sense, more about drawing that feeling or energy you see/feel. It doesn't have to be perfect, and naturally you'll want to "follow the figure" as you draw, but I think at least having that understanding as your starting point makes all the difference!! Keep me posted, let me know if you see improvements!
Wow! Beautifully done. Thank you for sharing your process.
the way your hand moves while drawing is somewhat magical, I had to watch the video twice bc I was so lost watching the flow of your hand.
Oh wow, what an awesome comment! Thank you 😊 that's really nice to hear, I think it might also have to do with the medium... charcoal is particularly expressive and its really nice to push the charcoal around and get different marks out of it. Really appreciate you watching, thanks so much!
Thanks so much for you explanations! They´re really helpful!!!!
Ah great, I'm so glad to hear that!! thank you for watching :)
Really inspiring words, your process is so refreshing!
Great to get to follow along your life drawing session like this, and it's so true: the more detail and rendering you add, the stiffer the drawing tends to become. Even starting out with a pretty wild gesture, the more things you add it's like you're constantly fighting that tendency to straighten things out and flatten them down... :)
Ah yes!! I totally relate. I can say that over time you do start to learn when to scale back and be selective, and leave well enough alone! .. that comes with practice and with getting to know what it is you are choosing to look at (at first, it feels like you have to take everything in, but observation with practice can be discerning as well). I'm so glad to hear you like the life drawing sessions, thanks so much!! That means a lot to get your feedback, I really appreciate it :) thanks for watching!
Hermoso,genial esa técnica👽👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
So good
Muchas gracias por el contenido! Saludos desde Venezuela
🇻🇪 ❤ 🇻🇪 ! Thank you
Genial gracias
I really really really love to see you drawing. Very inspiring for my own work. Thank you for all the videos!
Hi Andreas! Wow, thank you very much, I appreciate your feedback it's really good to hear that. Personally I learnt "how to draw" from watching my figure drawing teacher draw, when she did demos - there is so much value in seeing the way others make their marks and approach their drawing, that you can take and incorporate into your own work. Thanks for watching! :)
My sole NATURAL RESPONSE is to bugger a thing up 😂
Nice
Thanks friend!
Amazing 😍
This is quite different to how Nicolaides describes gesture drawing - he says to feel the area of the body and then constantly keep the hand moving to put that feeling onto the paper - and he uses the word "furious" to describe how to do it. To me, "furious" means quick. Nicolaides writes on page 14 "draw rapidly and continuously in a ceaseless line..."
Yes I agree with you. Working with a continuous line is an excellent technique to unlock gesture drawing. But most beginners, especially if they are drawing from photos - which 90% of UA-cam figure drawing audience is doing - tend to draw in outlines, they draw the literal, 2D version of the figure, and try to do so "quickly": in other words, they aim to make an outline with all the limbs and features represented. And this is a totally wrong way to think about gesture. it results in a stylized, generic figurine and does not unlock a true artistic response in the person drawing. As you point out, gesture is about capturing the feeling.
I guess, in this video, my intention was to reach that "UA-cam audience" by distinguishing the approach to gesture that so many people are missing - the idea that you do not have to draw the full figure in 1 min (ie quickly).
I teach students in irl workshops how to "do" gesture drawing by using exactly the technique you mention, fast continuously lines, and it's very effective for freeing up and for understanding the difference between drawing a feeling and drawing the figure in a stylized way. But for me, it's still a technique to get you to that point, and like any technique can be dropped once you have arrived at a connection or understanding of the approach - that is understanding how to draw the non-visual aspect of the figure, or as you say, to draw the feeling. Thank you for this considered and insightful comment, I really appreciate it - really good for a discussion that is sorely lacking on UA-cam.
@@Drawing-Life Edit: Oh, and this is my other channel - I get confused as I have two separate browsers open connected to different gmail accounts and different names. I am Max. Thank you for the reply. I am a beginner to this, and it's very confusing as there are so many people saying different things and it's often difficult to know in which direction to go. So it's useful to have that clarification. I can understand why Nicolaides' instructions might be difficult for people, but I think if anyone has done any acting, for example, then we can understand how "putting yourself into someone's body", ie, pretending to become them, actually produces those feelings in one's own body. There is actually neuroscience behind this. In the brain, there are things called mirror neurons which fire up in response to others' behaviours/postures/emotions etc and produce that same feeling in you, but if a person is strongly head-centric or as people say - in their head - then this gets sort of cut off. For this to function, the nervous systems in our bodies and our awareness have to be synced up. In our modern world of screens, overthinking and generally fast-paced lifestyle, this gets short-circuited. I'm not actually an actor, but I do know some actors who have described this. I learnt this process of putting one's own mind into the being (for want of a better word) of another through various spiritual practices tied to Tibetan Buddhism - in which one imagines oneself as someone else, and the transformation in how literally everything appears and feels is quite remarkable. I used the acting example earlier as I think it's more accessible to people, and it is through other practitioners of these Tibetan arts who were actors that I learned about the correlation. From my perspective, and you touched on this in your excellent comment, Nicolaides seems to be using this approach primarily to loosen people up and get us connecting our bodies to our environments without the blocking filter of the head-centric analytic consciousness. Would you say that's correct? If it is, then the man really was a genius, and I can't wait to get further into his book. I wish there were modern courses or at least youtube series that were wholly based on his book so that we could get led through his programme. It is quite difficult to only work through a book with limited examples and no feedback. Anyway, I love your channel, and I can certainly feel Nicolaides' vibe in how you do things. Thanks.
@@danielthechampionoftheworl8490 Thank you so much for your reply Max. This is a deeply fascinating topic that you have brought up and I think your analysis of this mysterious process is hugely insightful - the analogy of the actor is perfect, and in my limited practice of Tibetan Buddhist meditation the idea of swapping self and other is equally relevant and useful. Thank you for sharing this, this will definitely resonate with many people who read this. I lately have been thinking a lot about right brain / left brain processes for creative exploration. Essentially, in the same way that you describe it - our brain power throughout the day is constantly focused on logical, left brain processes, and for creative work, we really should be in tune with more intuitive, creative and right brain processes. In other words, trying to make a gesture drawing using an analytical approach - saying things like "this must be the leg, and this line must be a line of action, or this line must go here" - is counter productive entirely. Rather, when making a gesture drawing the emphasis should be fully on just responding, not analyzing.
You're so right - there are simply too many conflicting ideas and even definitions of gesture drawing here on UA-cam and across the internet that it's really no wonder people get frustrated. It seems like everyone who is making content says that their idea is the right one and others are wrong. I think it's really problematic especially for anyone trying to learn figure drawing, because in my personal drawing experience learning Nicolaides' approach did not only transform the way i understood drawing, but as a result it changed my life. That's why I'm so passionate about trying to explain this. The key to all of this, and I think the main reason that there are so many conflicting definitions online, is to experience drawing anything (the figure or any subject) from life. That's where you can fully understand what gesture drawing is. Only using photo reference wont' give that experience. I do think that you can bring that experience into work based on photos, but fundamentally, it must be first understood in the context of drawing from life .
Great discussion!! Thanks so much for your feedback and insight on this. You've got me inspired to do more Nicolaides' focused tutorials. I would love to teach a course on the book, but as I said, I think it's tricky to do so without a live model. I agree he was a genius!
My name is actually Daniel - Max is an alter ego - born out of an in-joke with some friends about going Maximum De Niro (in Goodfellas). I know that many actors actually experience physical symptoms, often illnesses, and many times mental illness, because they have fully gone into a character which is, let's say, less than wholesome... My experience within Tibetan Buddhism is within Vajrayana, or tantra, which is not exotic sex, as many people think - tantra means "continuation", and refers to our energy - ie, our emotion, our feeling capacity, our sensation. In these practices, you "transform" your self-concept into the being of what they call a "deity" - which is really an idealised concept. The important thing is that this transformation is not mental - it is a felt reality - hence tantra/energy. The interesting thing about this is that these practices cannot be undertaken until you have received an initiation into the practice - this initiation is really an introduction how to do it, but it has to be done in person by a master who has fully realised the practice. I think this relates to what you were saying about the importance of life drawing, rather than from a picture of a model. Being in the presence of that energy directly has a direct impact on your nervous system/mind, and can directly evoke sensation/feeling in you, in a way that bypasses the left brain, to use that terminology. There is some discussion now that maybe these initiations can be done online, but it has to be live. I've always found that the in-person method is many times more powerful and effective. I think it can be possible online, but a person has to be really tuned in and sensitive to what's going on. It's certainly far less easy.
I've had a look through some of the other comments on this video and I think many people intuitively understand that this approach is something special. I've been wanting to learn to draw because I felt that I needed to somehow counter this massive left-brain dominance of our society and I can feel that it has diminished my quality of life - it's sort of like in those Harry Potter films where those weird dark ghosty things suck the life out of people. Anyway, to my dismay, when I started looking around at ways of drawing, it was so uninspiring and very left-brainy - the method that I think is called construction. I see some others have mentioned this too in the comments. I'm sure that if people really understood the nuances of Nicolaides' approach and could grasp the difference between this "natural way to draw", connecting via your essence, rather than via your brain, there would be huge swathes of people beating a path to door of the person delivering it. It seems to get right to the heart of what so many people are missing nowadays but just can't quite articulate it or are just unaware of what it is that is lacking.
Thank you soooooo much for this video! It’s helped me in the two days I’ve decided to mix up my drawing game!
Wowww!! That's so amazing to hear! I'm so happy, this makes my day. 😊The right approach to gesture is something that will constantly support how you develop your drawing technique. Hope you enjoy working with this for a long time to come.
@@Drawing-Life I know I will I have the drive and will to go beyond what I know now!
@@MixItUpWithStasia Enjoy the ride! Keep me posted :)
Your gesture drawing is an inspiration to me. I am learning so much by watching your videos. I am currently taking a once a week 3 hour life drawing class and I really feel that I have improved my response to the model from your instruction,
Hi Sarah, that is so wonderful to hear, thank you so much for this comment! I'm so happy that you find these videos a support in your drawing, keep me posted, let me know how you get on with life drawing!! Enjoy the journey 😊❤
Hi Siobhan, the part about mark setting...I will remember this tot take in to my life drawing classes .... I have been growing in my drawing skills since I follow your posts. Very gratefull for this. And also learning to follow my impressions, without the stress of timed poses. Great work and thanks again!!!!
Kind regards from Antwerp...
I'm so glad to hear that! That's wonderful that you can see a difference in your work. Drawing from life rather than from photos always has an impact on your drawing, so its great that you can get to life drawing classes. Definitely don't worry about making a full drawing in a short timed pose, as you say follow the impression that you see. There are always the longer poses to make a full drawing.
Is it a charcoal stick that you are using?
Thank you, that was really, really helpful. I shall approach tomorrow's life drawing session differently.
That's so awesome!! I'm really glad this made sense, and I hope it makes sense in life drawing tomorrow! I recommend the book "The Natural Way to Draw" as a support for anyone going to life drawing - not necessarily to follow the schedules and exercises in it, but just as a reading material it's very useful. Let me know how you get on!
Im drawing my mother daily and have been looking for guidance to capture her more fluidly. I appreciate your drawing style, suggestions and tips. It is also great being able to watch you draw, and see how you see as your drawing emerges :) Thanks for sharing your insight! Im loving your channel!
Thanks Rachel! That means so much to hear your feedback. What a beautiful practice to draw your mother every day, i think that must be such a wonderful experience. I can highly recommend a book called The Natural Way to Draw by Kimon Niccolaides as a resource for gesture drawing, and a more responsive and observation-based approach to drawing. Thanks for watching these videos!! :)
@@Drawing-Life I am very fortunate to be able to usher my mom in her end journey. She captured stories in her art, something I’d like to emulate:) I ordered the book you recommended. Thank you for your reply.
I need to teacher like you
Thank you. I am interested in gesture drawing people playing golf and am new to figure drawing. Could you point me in right direction please as to best way to start the golfer figures please?
Golfing figures will have really strong line of actions ... I would suggest watching my recent video "How to See the Gesture in Any Pose" for advice on how to capture a pose such as a golf swing etc. ua-cam.com/video/jx5d8KC9YO0/v-deo.html
@@Drawing-Life thank you very much.
great stuff Siobhan. thanks for these. they are very helpful and unlike other videos online
Thanks Liam, I really appreciate that ! I'm so glad you found it helpful, such a vital part of the figure drawing process. Thanks for watching! :)
Gesture has been giving me so much trouble, and it really annoys me because this is where everyone says to start if you want to draw figures...
It's a practice, think of it like a drawing drill, it's not going to make sense right away, work with it over time. I would also suggest using it as a way to draw abstractly, that can be the best way to loosen up and get confident in your lifework. Doesn't have to be a recognizable figure. Some people will tell you it's not for beginners, but trust me it's essential part of developing your drawing. Ok, last advice - it really helps to draw from life, if you can go to life drawing then it will help hugely. Keep me posted! and thanks for watching :)
And these gesture drawings you make are my favorites, I really love them! Would like to have some framed on my wall!
Youre too kind! thanks for saying so ... mostly these drawings don't go anywhere after a drawing session, plus they're all drawn on newsprint which doesn't frame well at all! It's so thin that it's really difficult to frame! But, this comment makes my day, thanks for saying that. And thanks for watching!! ❤
Thank you for your perspective on this and clearing up misconceptions. It's very valuable
Ah that's great to hear, thank you! I really appreciate that, there can be a lot of confusion around this topic :)
So wonderful to stumble upon another local artist. Thank you for the tips ☺
Hi! Awesome, it's nice to connect with you here, thank you so much 😊
I love your technique and videos, bought your Udemy courses as well but i still struggle too much doing gestures which i find magical and inspiring. How do i know where to place the "c" or the "s" when following the flow? I end up with sausages... Thank you for sharing this!
Hi Luis, ah great to hear that you took the Figure Drawing Course. If you are still struggling with gesture drawing, I have 2 resources that will help you: 1). check out the Udemy course I published specifically on this technique: tinyurl.com/yhtht83a ....that will certainly help you to know where and when to place your gesture marks. Regarding C or S.... watch this video: ua-cam.com/video/jx5d8KC9YO0/v-deo.html Then, if you still feel that the drawing is stuck, please send me a message via Udemy, we can discuss your drawings and where the issue is!! I'm there every day, so feel free to contact me and if you can send me your drawing that would be great. It would be great to feel confident in your gesture drawing because it really is a powerful drawing technique so I would love to help you get there. S
@@Drawing-Life didnt expect your reply so soon! I have the udemy course that you've suggested and will also follow the YT one. I'll reach you out through Udemy, you'd be my life saviour if you do boost me there, i have the feeling everything starts at Gesture drawing once the fundamentals are there.
Very informative
@drawingwithajay thank you so much!! Nice to hear that from a fellow creative. Thanks for watching :)
I've tried gesture drawing sessions several times and I found myself totally lost, I only wasted tons of paper for nothing because those exercises never helped me improve and I've never understood all that talk about "draw what you feel" stuff. What does that even mean?, what if I don't feel anything when looking at my reference?, does that mean I can't draw?
I've been trying to learn to draw for years, but gesture drawing is so ambiguous, confusing and frustrating.
That is super frustrating, and more so because there are so many conflicting voices and opinions about this one tiny aspect of figure drawing! I've got a really LONG answer here for you, because i think this is such an important question - and I know others might find this useful too. So sorry for the length, but here is my advice:
Draw what you feel means draw what you see as the feeling of the pose, not what you feel (although you will eventually get to that place too). Your entire approach to drawing has to be completely different when you practice gesture drawing, this is the whole point how I teach it - far too many people tell you to draw the full figure with simple, quick lines (in order to have a readable figure) and to be honest that's not even relevant to learning figure drawing, and neither does it help you in any way to understand how to draw the feeling of the pose. Trying to draw the figure fast in 1 minute with simplified shapes to conform to a figurine is in my opinion a waste of time, and a frustrating pursuit for most people. It gives you nothing in terms of development other than drawing generic shapes quickly. This is not what true gesture drawing is about. I will also add that trying to teach someone gesture drawing from only photo reference, is incredibly tricky and that's why most people revert to drawing simplified shapes for the body, instead of teaching how to draw the feeling of a pose - it's hard to experience that in a photo reference.
Instead, if you focus fully on NOT trying to draw "the figure" and look at the pose in terms of "what is the feeling that I see in this pose" : tension? expansion? grace? power? light? heavy? twisted? long? scrunched up? stretched out? .... you will not only be able to make marks that express those feeling words, but you will finally have reached something in yourself that is the key to being an artist - expressing feeling. Surely that is the single most important reason to do art. Sure, we can learn construction of the figure for commercial work, and in animation and design we need to do that, but that's a separate exercise, and ultimately the entire purpose of drawing is to express something that you can't say with words. Gesture helps you to get to that place, and figure drawing (more importantly Life Drawing - drawing the model from life) is a perfect practice. I'm not saying you have to do gesture drawing - you certainly don't if you think it's not for you, but I'm very sure that when we talk about true gesture drawing (not stick figures or simplified, generic symbols) that is something that can really improve your drawing overall, and your understanding of what drawing is about.
My advice is to stick with it, you certainly have the passion for figure drawing and are willing to push yourself to reach deeper levels in your art, so try to approach it from a different angle. I would suggest that you use scribble drawing and searching lines to make a drawing that might look like a mess of lines, but is more connected to your reply or response to what you see as the feeling of your subject. Check out Mad Charcoal's UA-cam channel for inspiration. I will also say, draw from life! Even if it's just people in a cafe, looking out the window drawing people walking, or even draw plants and trees to practice gesture. Everything that you look at has an inherent gesture that you can start to recognize.
Long winded answer, but hopefully this helps you and someone else who reads it! ❤
@@Drawing-Life I'm really grateful to you for taking your valuable time to give a detailed explanation. I know the importance of gesture drawing and for a while I was really bitter about my inability to understand it. I've been trying for years and despite that I wanted to create drawings with the human figure, I've made peace with the idea that there 's something, maybe a kind of sensitivity that is needed to create with a pencil, something that I unfortunately don't have. So it's time for me to move on, but don't delete the answer you wrote, I think it's very valuable and a lot of aspiring artists will find it incredibly useful.
Thanks again, lots of love for you and keep up with the good work 😄
Great work. I like how you use the charcoal loosely and with great effect.
You are such a gift! ❤️
Ah wow, what a lovely comment to get! Thank you Alicia! I really appreciate you watching, it means the world
Another super video. Thanks so much. I'm watching from San Antonio, Texas, USA. I'm wondering, can I practice gesture drawing with a simple ballpoint pen? I've been liking the scribble technique. Scribble with ballpoint pen whilst doing gesture drawing practice. Hmmm...
Hi Rich! Yes, that's how I first started exploring gesture! with a ballpoint pen, using scribble marks. It's a wonderful drawing tool, and can actually be really versatile and give you a range of tones and marks. Plus I love the fluid, easy quality of the lines. So, yes! Experiment away! that's what it's all about ... keep me posted how you get on. So cool to hear you're in San Antonio! thanks for watching and leaving a comment :)
God bless you 🙏
😊🙏
What would you call, "progressing further" as a figure artist?
Thank you 😢 was really sad tonight because I didn’t know what to do in my gesture session, now everything just seems to click 😭😭😭 , gesture for now is describing a pose to you not using words but lines 😫.
Ah exactly!! Thanks so much for this comment, this is great to hear, I really appreciate it :)
What you say seems important. But it would have been helpful to actually see the model you are drawing.
This is UA-cam, so unfortunately not possible unless I want to get strikes and bans. It's more for guidance.
Bon Soir. Wrong. I have been able to do gesture drawing et aussi figure drawing for 15 years.
Lol. That's awesome