Flames / Gesture

I did this sketch for a student to demonstrate how gesture might be considered. We were looking at a dancer and I was explaining how gesture isn’t about finding the outside edge of a pose.

I threw linrs on the page that only vaguely relate to the pose we were looking at and encouraged the student to put many lines outside the figure and inside the figure.\

I also encouraged the student to make a mess. I made a mess myself in spades working with wild abandon. Looking at the sketch now, I have no idea what the pose was and that is part of the point.

I often work this way before I tie down or clean up a sketch. I use a pencil to dash off very light lines that are just a suggestion and then I commit to the final line work. My work might seem detailed but it is at first chaotic and fluid.

I do an exercise like this wit every student I am trying to loosen up. being careful and overly concerned with how the final drawing will look kills so many beginning attempts by students. Getting them to work with abandon and then some slower care is my goal.

This approach isn’t always understood. The outside hard edged shape dominates most students mind set. That rock hard perception is difficult for most to abandon.

Nothing about this sketch is accurate. It is vaguely based on what I saw but also wildly different that the outside shape. One limb flows effortlessly into another and the overall form shoots upward from the ground licking outward like a flame. Even if the student isn’t ready to understand. I enjoy demonstrating the idea as best I can.