Gesture Drawing

So, in words, what is gesture drawing? Simply defined a gesture drawing captures the movement the artist feels within the subject. It is the artist's rapid response to what the subject is doing, not how it appears. Artists have been doing gesture drawing for centuries, but not until the early 20th century did it get its label, thanks to Kimon Nicolaides who left for us a comprehensive study program in his book, The Natural Way to Draw.

Honore Daumier, Drinking

Honore Daumier, Riot Scene

NOT gesture drawing

Yes! Gesture drawing!

August Rodin

Eugene Delacroix

The Kiss, Rodin

Extended Gesture Drawing Omar Rayyan, Illustrator of children’s books

Completed Painting from the gesture drawing

Gesture drawings are beautiful in their own, but a tighter drawing or painting that begins in gesture has a sense of motion and energy that can not be made with contour lines or grids of ovals and rectangles.

More Words on Gesture A similarity between contour drawings and gesture drawings is that the hand tracks the motion of the eye as you scan the entirety of a subject. Another similarity is that you keep your drawing tool in contact with the paper throughout the drawing. As with a partially blind contour drawing, you keep your eye on the subject being drawn and only occasionally refer to the paper. One difference between the two ways of drawing is the speed at which you make your lines. When working with contour line, a slow rate of observation and corresponding drawing is practiced. In gesture drawing, a relatively fast pace of scanning the subject and drawing the related information is used. Another difference is how the drawing tool is handled. In contour drawing the drawing implement is held as one would hold a pencil when writing in a notebook. In that case you are using primarily the fingers and wrist motion to create lines. When creating a gesture drawing, the tool is held in a relatively loose manner and the elbow and shoulder are incorporated into developing the line drawn. Using large arm movements are often stressed in rapid gesture drawings.

Examples of loose and tight gesture drawings of hands