A common error emerging artists make is rushing to the details. They see drawings and paintings that excite them and assume that it's the details that make it work so well. If you forget everything you've ever been taught, remember this one thing: details come toward the end. Let's focus just on drawing for this Tip. What comes first? Answer: Gesture In these three student drawings from Nicolaides classes, you don't see details yet you know what the figures are doing and you get a notion of their shapes. This is gesture drawing. It captures movement
along the shape's edges, inside and outside of the figures.
Learning this skill first gives you confidence to allow your hand to follow what your eye is seeing. That's the
reason gesture as the first step frees you to grab all the others parts later so that eventually you can draw as masterfully as this. Try this:
You don't need special drawing paper or even special pencils or pens. You can even do this exercise on
newspaper. (Newspaper might be the best idea because you won't feel you're wasting paper 🙂 ) Just grab any ole pencil or pen and any ole piece of paper. - Focus on a lamp or a coffee maker
- Set a timer for 30 seconds
- Looking at edges inside and out, let your pencil move rather quickly and feel what those edges are doing
- Don't look down at your scribbles. Keep your attention on feeling the movement as your pencil/pen explores
- No matter where you are, stop when the timer goes off
Do this 12 times, one
right after another on the same sheet of paper. When this becomes fun rather than a chore, you are well on your way. Next week, we'll take the next step. You can access the archive of all my newsletters at anytime by going HERE. |
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