The Love Life Drawing study group exercise this week was to make gesture drawings of those same 6 figures we’ve been doing this month with a finite number of marks. The goal is to describe the pose with 12-15 CSI strokes. CSI means the shape each mark should be a C-curve, an S-curve, or a straight line. The numbers you see above each figure is my count of how many lines each took. By limiting the strokes, you’re forced to focus on only the most necessary features.
I am pretty pleased with these results. I’m going to own up on a couple things right here. In the bottom right figure, I counted that right-side torso curve as 2 lines because it didn’t hold to the CSI rules. And I made liberal use of Procreate’s undo feature to help my lines look good. The heads in particular took me a number of tries to get anything creditable. Two finger undo!
All around, I’d say these little drawings do a solid job of describing the figures. Even the one I have the most misgivings about — Jade in the bottom middle — there’s a solidity to that diagram that really does reflect the reference.
The one thing I’d say I am getting wrong is a product of all the stick-figure work I’ve been doing lately for the getting started series. My marks for limbs may be outlines, or they may be center lines, and there’s really no way for a viewer to judge. Arthur (top row, middle) would have an impossibly narrow leg if those were outlines, but the figure to his right does have outline marks. Trying to get shape from a single mark is probably hopeless, but I think it could be done better than what I did.
I enjoyed this exercise and intend to keep this in the rotation. Drawings like this are probably good practice for timed gesture drawing sessions, even if it’s just for underdrawing.
