I think I said this post will be about a cool outlining tool I’ve discovered but I decided instead to post some sketches. Hey, it’s my blog. Besides, I think I have at most about ten readers so I’m not in danger of disappointing vast swaths of the public.

The sketches below are called gestures. Gestures are quick drawings, often done in as little as one minute. They are intended not to capture a perfect likeness but instead to record the essence of a pose.

Gesture drawing is a great learning tool but I hated doing them when I was in college. I would always end up with page upon page of clumsy marks that added up to nothing. When I began attending Steve Carpenter’s weekly Figure Drawing Open Studio in Rochester, N.Y., I ran into the same brick wall trying to capture the one-minute poses that start off the session.

I decided to buckle down and practice gesture drawing at home. I start off every drawing session with a drill consisting of 20 one-minute gesture sketches. I don’t have access to live models (my girlfriend is not fond of modeling for me, even clothed; and my cats get up and move at inopportune times). I do, however, have many reference books filled with photos of models both nude and clothed and they’re useful enough for those times a model isn’t available.

The practice has paid off. My gesture drawings have definitely improved and I hope to utilize the knowledge gained to improve my finished drawings as well.

Here are a few samples of my most recent gestures (for those wondering, these were done with conté pencil on newsprint):