Thanks for watching! This way of drawing / sketching a portrait study takes a while to build up, and the details only appear after about 80% of the way through! Let me know your thoughts on portrait sketching below, and how you approach this subject!
Great point! I think a more abstract, distilled drawing leaves more room for the viewer to engage and interpret the work. A fully detailed and highly rendered drawing can often close that door.
Thanks so much for this video. As a complete beginner, this is exactly the approach I am trying to follow - drawing what I see without the use of a template.
Thanks Tim, love to hear this. A lot of people will tell you otherwise, but I believe it's way more important to learn how to draw naturally first and then move into more rigorous, template or structure approach. It's ALL about line confidence - this is the starting point most beginners miss completely. if you learn to control your line naturally and intuitively you will have way more success as you move to more careful studies. Thanks for watching!!
I think academic and gestural or expressive methods are valid. I am using academic or analytical drawing to study the difficult parts of the reference. But my goal is always to be gestural and expressive in the end 🙂
Agreed - I think the ultimate drawing skillset is one that combines a solid knowledge of structure with a masterful ability for expression. Then you will have a powerful way of drawing. But the question is which to study first??... my personal leaning is to learn how to express your line work first. Understand your natural way of drawing, then build on academic knowledge. Everyone's path is different though. Would love to know how you get on with your analytical drawing, keep me posted?
Glad this was helpful! Cafe drawing is a great exercise too, helps with a very loose and sketchy approach - I have a video on this channel about that if you're interested. But thanks for watching this one!! :)
I enjoyed the video and thank you for sharing it. It would be helpful to post the reference in the video to compare to the drawing. Generally speaking, I prefer an expressive portrait over a hyper-realistic one; both approaches have skill sets in common and some that differ. The gestural, scribble method is one way of drawing and construction another. Ideally, I would learn both so I have the option to employ whichever method for the task. Your grip changes throughout the drawing and that's fantastic. Implement grip and origin of movement (shoulder v elbow v wrist v fingers) is something that interests me. Once again, thanks for your insights. :-)
Thank you so much for this! I appreciate this a lot - yes both approaches do have a lot to offer, one is not "better" over the other - I just hope that people who feel they don't have an affinity for hyper-realistic drawing then think that they "can't" draw. There are other ways of drawing! :) Re the photo reference: generally, i don't include the photo because very often am working from online resources of the model and I don't want to include images in my videos that are not my own, and also don't want the video to get flagged. In this instance, I drew the portrait from my friend, from life.... and I did not get a photo of the final pose. Thank you so much for watching, and for your feedback :)
That's a great way of putting it, yes its very intuitive. i found that when I started drawing this way, my observation became really focused! Let me know how you get on :)
this method of drawing makes so much more sense to me, I was really getting sad about my lack of technical knowledge, That voice telling me this is wrong and it is not like this wasnt allowing me to enjoy drawing :S was always thinking what am i supposed to be doing until I found your videos and starting understanding what was I supposed to be aiming at and letting myself go a bit C:. im not really good, but i have improved ^^, I am aiming at learning structures soon, but having in mind the loosenes, and freedom to experiment my own lines, thanks
This is so wonderful to hear! Thanks for leaving this comment. We are always to quick to judge our drawings as "wrong" if they don't look "accurate" - but your drawing can still be powerful. I think learning to understand your own lines and marks is so important. Check my recent video "What's the Point of Gesture" because I explain more about this approach. It's much easier to learn this intuitive and responsive way of drawing in the beginning than it is to try to do it later on. Thanks again for watching!
I found all the structured approaches to drawing the face incredibly boring and tedious. Now I just approach it by searching for shapes and putting them together as though in a puzzle and its much more fun and I get better results. Looking at this video I can tell this gestural approach is exactly how I want to approach it now. In a way it also feels more meditative. Thanks!
Thank you so much! I'm glad this resonates with you, and you understand where i'm coming from. I also find those structured approaches tedious, for me it takes all the connection out of the process. I like what you said about searching for shapes and putting them together as a puzzle - that taps into a pure observation and is bound to come through in the drawing. Yes, it feels more mediative, less pre-scribed. Thanks for watching! :)
Hi Alice, thanks for this. Yes, that approach doesn't suit everyone, and personally i find it more rewarding to use a an approach that is more intuitive and free flowing, instead of based around step by step constructions. It doesn't always yield "perfect" results, but it can be a more creative process. Thanks for watching! :)
Wow! that's amazing to hear. Welcome to gesture drawing!! I'm excited to hear that you instinctively draw like that. It's rarely taught as a method, but it's a very powerful way of drawing. Check out my other videos on gesture drawing if you're interested.
I agree about not using straight lines. I can now see the face as an arrangement of overlapping parts of spheres, ovals and egg shapes. This also makes the shading easier because it's easier to see three dimensionsThanks so much!
Hi Bridget, yes absolutely, it does also make the shading easier if we think of curved shapes. A teacher once told me that there are also no convex curves in the figure! Something to think about.... everything is as you say, an arrangement of outward curves.... You have to look closely to see it, but that point helped me to stop drawing hourglass shapes for the waist! :) Thank you so much for watching! S
I love your drawings and your figure drawings are so helpful but at the beginning of the video your pencil marks did not show up on the screen too well . Could you use a softer pencil or maybe charcoal ?
@ChristineWatson, thank you so much for this comment and the feedback - usually,t at the very beginning I'm not actually making any marks on the paper, hardly at all, at least for the first 2 minutes I'm just sort of "finding the gesture"; hence there aren't really any marks at the beginning, even though I'm drawing all the same. I tend to draw as lightly as possibly at the very early stages of a drawing. But I can see in this video how it's almost like a video quality issue, and it looks like there is a drawing that should be more visible. I'll keep this in mind and try to make more definite marks to show the process more clearly. I have a few other videos on this channel, with charcoal and darker materials like that, if it's any help?
Thanks for that video. Because I do not want to draw hyperrealistic - although it is nice to watch - I like gesture and (urban) sketching drawings. Till now I thought gesture drawings is always long lines drawed from the shoulder - which I learned the last year - but your technique is new to me and will give them an attempt to think as it would be clay. My biggest challenge with your technique is the low pressure of the pen beause I have a heavy hand :-)
Hi George! Thanks for watching and leaving a comment - it's a great question, and there is lots to discuss in the "technique" of gesture drawing. Briefly, drawing long lines from the shoulder is one way to get even fluid marks that can describe the "line of action" from head to feet. But there are also other ways of capturing gesture, and using circular, scribble marks is very effective. There are many ways to describe the gesture that you see, and ultimately Gesture Drawing is about your own mark making, so at a certain point, you should drop any technique and be free o draw in response to what you observe. So, I would say, explore all ways and see which way feels right to you. About the light pen pressure - I find it's better to start our very lightly, and build up your marks, but again it doesn't have to be the way or the approach. However, I would suggest trying to make lighter marks and practice it. You'll find it can be really helpful and will increase your line confidence! Hope this helps, let me know if you have any other questions. :)
@@Drawing-Life Thanks. I take your course on skillshare, see my comment with same user name (titel: 1 minute Pose - Thinking as a sculpture) in the course project section. The scribbeling method helps me alot to get more free in drawing. This is currentyl my goal :-)
@@georgerabbitearl oh wonderful!! I'll definitely check your comment tomorrow when I am back at my desk :) Sorry for the delay to respond, I'm so glad to hear you are in the class! :)
I love your approach - gestural, expressive, focusing on the experience. I’ve been teaching myself figure drawing recently and have been inspired by your videos - thank you. So far, I’ve only done portraits using a very rigid approach - I’ll give them a go with gestures.
That's wonderful to hear Peter! Thank you so much for that :) If you want a book recommendation as a support for learning to draw the figure, then you should check out "The Natural Way to Draw" Kimon Niccolaides... I'm going to be doing a video about it next week. It's a great guide for beginner figure drawing.
I love this approach! I also like your description of “responding” to the subject instead of trying to reproduce an exact image as a camera would. Thanks!
Thanks so much Malia! Glad to hear that resonates with you, yes drawing can offer so much more expression than just representation I think! Thanks for watching 😁
This is the way I myself approach drawing the figure. I love your video, it greatly helps, now that I am about to try some portraits. Thank you so much!
I love your gestural drawing style, it’s reminded me not to put in every line, a lesson in holding back ! Thank you, I’ll be watching more of your videos.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge! This is amazing :-) I find that using the curved scribbled lines and really seeing the subject whilst drawing gives the best result. I am a fan of gesture in art, so thank you for putting that out there too.
Ah! Yes, you get it, that's so great - thanks for this comment. This is wonderful to hear. I definitely am passionate about gesture drawing as well, I find it's a very connected way to draw. Thank you so much for watching! :)
