Types Of Human Figure Drawing

[Jon Levatte]

Figuredrawing, also known as life drawing, is the art of accurately representing the human figure through drawing. It is often done in a live setting, with a model who is traditionally nude. However, it can also be done from memory or photograph references.

They learn to pay attention to subtle nuances of figure movement and gesture. This allows them to accurately depict the figure in motion, as well as create dynamic poses that have an emotional impact on the viewer.

Start by sketching a figure-based framework that will serve as your guide. This means drawing a stick figure or bone structure of the figure you are trying to draw and paying attention to the proportions and angles.

Adding shadows and highlights to figure drawings can create a more polished look. To create shadows and highlights, you should observe how different light sources affect the figure. This can help you add a layer of depth to the figure drawing.

Over the past few months, I have spent about 10 to 20 minutes a day doing some simple gesture drawings in the morning. As a result, I have seen significant benefits to my overall development as an artist. I am still primarily interested in painting, but sometimes in order to continue improving in one area, you need to explore other areas.

Gesture drawing involves capturing the action, form and pose of a subject. Typically, you will draw a model who adopts timed poses ranging from 1 to 5 minutes. The shorter the pose, the less information you will be able to capture. In the most primitive form, a gesture drawing could be nothing more than a couple of curved lines which indicate the gesture. For longer poses, you can start adding more detail and tone.

Do you see the difference between these questions and merely copying what you see? Copying what you see is fine, but to really see as an artist, then you need to understand what is going on and what you are actually seeing.

It does not take up much time. The set-up time for gesture drawing is minimal. All you need is a pen/pencil and a sketchbook. And the poses can be as short as 1 minute. So you can easily fit in gesture drawing in short intervals throughout the day. As noted earlier, I have been practicing gesture drawing every morning for the past few months. I actually find it to be a very relaxing start to the day.

You do not have to worry about making mistakes. You should not be doing any erasing in gesture drawing. If you make a mistake, then just learn from it and move on to the next drawing.

You will see noticeable improvements in your drawing within a relatively short period of time. This is because you are working relatively fast and will encounter so many more problems than if you were just doing one large artwork. The more problems you encounter, the more solutions you will develop.

You will gain a better understanding of form and the human anatomy. This is one of the main reasons people practice gesture drawing in the first place. It really gives you a feel for the form and anatomy of the human body. You will learn how the body moves and is connected.

It will indirectly benefit your painting skills. Drawing is the backbone of painting, so do not overlook it. Gesture drawing is a very efficient way to hone your drawing skills without having to commit a significant amount of time to it.

It is great for warming up your hands. I often find my first drawings in a session are rigid and tight. My hands just do not do what my eyes want them to do. But as I progress, my hands and eyes warm up and everything starts to flow.

Start with the head first. Everything flows from the head and it helps to develop a consistent starting point. With each pose, I will look for the head and quickly draw the outline before moving on to the rest of the pose. By doing this, there is no hesitation at the start of every pose as I know exactly how I want to start. Also, try to make a quick note of where the head is looking (up, down, left, right). After you have identified the head, then observe how the rest of the body is flowing from there. A great reference point is the spine. If I am ever lost, I just follow the spine and try to build form around that.

Always be thinking about the contour of the body. Is the body leaning toward or away? Where are the pinches and changes in direction? You can then use simple contour lines to give an indication of this. Not every line needs to follow the contour, but it is useful to have a few major contour lines as reference points.

Try to capture the essence of the pose before you try to render form. Regardless of any time limits, the first thing you should do in gesture drawing is to capture the essence of the pose. Once you have done that, you can go over and render with more detail and tone. This follows the general art guideline of working general to specific.

Use simple and meaningful lines. Try to draw every line with some kind of purpose. Do not draw lines just for the sake of drawing lines. I usually make a few practice strokes in the air before committing to the paper. Kind of like how a golfer will make a few practice swings before connecting with the ball.

Working quickly does not mean working recklessly. Working quickly is more about making quick decisions rather than making quick strokes of your pencil/pen. If you watch some of the really great drawers like Glenn Vilppu and Steve Huston, you should notice how slow they work, even when working with timed poses (there are videos of these two artists later in this post).

Embrace the curves. You should be careful with straight lines. Most of the time, curved lines are much more effective for rendering the human form. So instead of drawing a straight line for an arm, think about the action and pose of that arm and use curves to render this.

Try to capture what you like most about the pose. Usually, there will only be one or two things which you really like about a certain pose. Focus on those aspects and really try to emphasize them. It could be the pinch in the shoulder, the curve of the back or form of the chest. Sometimes you may even want to exaggerate the pose slightly to really capture what you want out of the pose.

Gesture drawing is fantastic for experimenting with different mediums which you are not familiar with. The only requirement I would suggest is that you pick a fast-drying medium (so you may want to avoid oils for gesture drawing).

You will find the way you draw will change depending on the medium you use. For pen and ink, I rely heavily on line rather than tone or shape. But with pencils or markers, I can incorporate more tonal work.

Pencil: similar to pen and ink, but you can use the broad side of the pencil for shading. You also have a much wider range of tones you can use which varies based on the pressure you apply. You can read more about the different drawing pencils here.

Some kind of fast-drying wet medium (like watercolor brush pens): useful for quick and broad washes of color. You can get some interesting results by combining a wet medium with something like pen and ink.

Below are two gesture drawings created using mostly pencil. In the bottom sketch, I had more time so I could start incorporating more tonal work. The pencil excels at this as you have a much wider range of tones that you can use compared to some other mediums like pen and ink. The top drawing is much more primitive as I only had a minute to capture the pose. I also went over the top of the drawing with some pen and ink to really emphasize some of the contours and edges. Remember, there are no rules to gesture drawing so you can mix and match the mediums you use to suit how you want to draw.

But you do not need to draw from life. The next best thing is to take advantage of all the amazing resources on the internet. There are many free reference libraries which you can draw from. I discuss some of these later in this post. But if you can attend live drawing sessions, then by all means, try to attend those.

The 7 Ls Of Gesture Drawing by Alphonso Dunn. Alphonso Dunn focuses on pen and ink and has a beautifully relaxed style with his gesture drawing. In this video, he provides some general tips for gesture drawing.

Timed model drawing with Steve Huston. Steve Huston is another master artist and teacher. If you are not familiar with his paintings, I strongly recommend you check them out. What I find interesting is the difference in style between Steve Huston and Glenn Vilppu. They both have remarkable confidence yet work in completely different ways.

The great thing about gesture drawing is that anyone can do it. All you need is a pen or pencil and paper. I have only started gesture drawing more seriously in recent months, but I already feel like I have improved my understanding of form, my hand dexterity, and my overall artistic ability.

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To build a solid foundation of life drawing skills that will accelerate your progress as you practise, have a look at our free online course. You might also like to check out our Life Drawing Success guide, which is about avoiding the common pitfalls with learning figure drawing.

A figure drawing is a drawing of the human form in any of its various shapes and postures, using any of the drawing media. The term can also refer to the act of producing such a drawing. The degree of representation may range from highly detailed, anatomically correct renderings to loose and expressive sketches. A life drawing is a drawing of the human figure, traditionally nude, from observation of a live model. Creating life drawings, or life studies, in a life class, has been a large element in the traditional training of artists in the Western world since the Renaissance.

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