What is Gesture Drawing? | Sketching Human Anatomy

When it comes to the human figure, breaking down the body into parts helps you find movement and emotion within its pose.

Gesture drawing is really useful as a first step. It involves capturing the action, form, and pose of your subject. Gesture drawing is used in illustration and animation and is a quci 1 to 5 minute art practice. A gesture drawing could be nothing more than a couple of curvy lines or could be more detailed for longer poses.

The purpose of gesture drawing is primarily to study the human form and anatomy and it allows you to explore how the body moves and how it is connected.

This way of drawing forces us to make quick assumptions about the body instead of trying to draw the lines of the body exsactly as it is. We ask ourselves…

• How is the hand connected to the rest of the arm?
• Where is the wrist bending?
• Is the hand facing toward me or away from me?
• What is the general direction of the arm?

Pros:

1. You do not need to worry about mistakes. In gesture drawing we don’t erase.
2. You will learn how to draw more instinctively.
3. You will begin to understand the human anatomy.
4. It will indirectly benefit all other art skills.
5. It is great warm-up for your art practice.

Gesture Drawing Tips

Start with the head first. The pose flows from the head and by drawing it first, it helps to develop a consistent starting point. I try to make a note of what direction the head is looking as well. Next, I draw the direction of the spine and build form from there.

Use simple lines. I try to draw every line with purpose.

Capture your favorite part of the pose. Usually, we are drawn to a certain element of a pose. For example, I really love the leg movement in our reference photo here (on left).

Try to emphasize the aspects you like and/or hide what you don’t.

Gesture is all about the emotions, especially in exaggerated poses. Ask yourself questions like “Where is the body leaning?” and “Which leg has more weight?”.

The more you practice gesture drawing, the more you will understand pose.

Watch the video tutorial on Youtube!

If you practice these techniques, I’d love to see and reshare your work on Instagram; tag me @EllaCreativeLLC