would need critique for gesture drawing 30's & 60's

Hi everyone ! i'm glad to join you on this forum, a cool place i found to train myself and learn how to improve my skills and be able to draw better the human body !
It's my 1st post here so my name is Ladislas , i'm French and i'm a freelance designer i used to draw a lot when i was younger but since a few years i was more interested in learning apps like photoshop illustrator ect... Now i know that the things which are making me happy doing my art is to draw so i decided to learn and take the real basis on this . Hope to improve with your help and advices if you're willing to help me figure out what to work on et point me out some mistakes i made in my drawings.

So here's my 1st submission here: some gesture drawing studies i've made today ( i use to do that for a couple of week now ( 3/4 times per week it depend cause i also work on painting)
theses gestures are 30 seconds and 60 seconds gestures.
I think i've got to work on my lines so they can be more clear ( i think it's because of the short time) but at the same time it gives me some energy in the lines , i really don't know if it's a bad habbit i should definitely abandon or if it's a possible way to do it.
I've putted some interesting attempts and some baaad ones .
i would need your advices on it , every critiques are welcome
thanks in advance :)

Hi Ladislas,

Sorry I'm answering you so long after your post, but I recently rediscovered this site and only just now registered. It looks like this forum is a little dead but I'm hoping maybe we can breath some life into it?!

I think you've done some really nice gesture work here. Particularly the first batch listed above; the drawings have a good sense of flow and that's what you really want to focus on when doing gesture. Don't worry so much on the shape of the body or the individual parts. Try to capture the underlying flow (or gesture!) of the pose. One thing that I think will help is to try to avoid using a lot of broken, sketchy lines. Try to get the whole pose in as few, unbroken lines as possible. If the model is in a pose where she is lunging forward with her left arm outstretched in front of her and her right leg thrust back behind her, you could capture the essence of that pose in one, unbroken gestural line from the tip of her left index finger to the tip of her right big toe. If you want to go back and restate or correct a part of a line, that's fine but make sure that the your correction line is solid, directional, and flowing with the gesture. It's really, really hard to capture gesture with a sketchy line. Do worry if it doesn't look like a body, or if it's not a recognizable drawing. that's not what gesture is about. I can speak with some authority here because I've done thousands for gesture drawings, and these are still things that I struggle with!

Here are some exercises you can try:
- Do 30 second poses but do 6 drawings for each pose. Gotta hustle!
- Try to capture the gesture of each pose with a single line
- try blind gesture (don't look are your drawing, only look at the model)
- Use charcoal on large news print. work big!
- Make big, sweeping gestures. draw from your shoulder, not your wrist
- try brush with ink
- draw with your thumb dipped in coffee or red wine

Keep gesturing and keep posting!

Best,

Erik

Hi Eric ! thnaks a lot for your answers and tips advices on my drawings ! i didn't expected any review on it anymore ! I will follow your advices and pratice the way you told me i'll post my drawing again so you can check it . I really appreciate that you taking the time to give me some advices, really thank you.
I'm not sure to be able to connect in the following days cause i'm taking some holidays and i won't be at home. but for sure i'll post again some drawings of gesture , i need to get better and learn from experienced people.

Hi Eric, i'm back from my holiday break.
I've tried to practice the way you told me on the old messages. As you will see in the screenshots of my drawing, i really got some troubles with clear and soft lines... Each drawing is 30'seconds , so i think i struggle a lot in my mind to know where to put the lines and also be enough precise and not stressed to draw them in a good way...
Well i don't feel satisfied with that , i know i'm here to learn so i really need your advice on it if you can watch them and give me some feedback on it , it would be very cool.

ps: i didn't had the possibility to touch my pencil the past 2 weeks because of my holidays, it may be also a small part of the explication of the really big struggle and bad lines on this session ;)

http://img11.hostingpics.net/pics/6632851208s1.jpg
http://img11.hostingpics.net/pics/8966731208s2.jpg
http://img11.hostingpics.net/pics/9641321208s3.jpg