–Arms Behind Back, drawing © 2007 by
ybonesy. All rights reserved.
If writing practice were art, it would be a gesture drawing.
–red Ravine, 2007
I remember doing gesture drawings on a rainy day in winter, sitting in front of my pad of cheap newsprint, thin charcoal stick in my right hand. The room had high ceilings and a gray cement floor. Our nude model was cold; I could tell from the gooseflesh on her arms, from her nipples. Before we began she walked to the small space heater, bent over and pushed it closer to the wooden stage where she was to pose. In spite of the cold, she seemed more comfortable in her skin than I was fully clothed.
Kimon Nicolaides introduced the concept of gesture drawing in 1941 in his book The Natural Way To Draw: A Working Plan For Art Study. Artist Nancy Doyle, in her instruction website, explains the concept this way:
I see the idea of gesture as the essential character of a figure or object, a kind-of eastern philosophy viewpoint. That is, everything has a gesture. As Nicolaides wrote, ‘Everything has a gesture – even a pencil.’ On the physical level, the pencil’s gesture is a ‘shooting’ straight line, very quick. That physical movement has an intangible counterpart – its essence – its movement identity, personality, or essence…That deep green shadow of the leaves – what gesture does it have? What is it doing? Curving diagonally from top to bottom, right to left? What is its energy level? What is the spirit of its movement, its light, its color? Also, I began to see the actual composition of the painting in gestural terms – an idea that the abstract expressionists also espoused. What is the composition doing? It has a certain movement – physical and spiritual. Is it graceful? Sweeping? Tentative? Curved? Angular? Agitated? Serene?
In gesture drawing the artist sketches the model using quick lines. Each gesture drawing is done in anywhere from a thirty seconds to two or three minutes. The idea is to capture in your drawing the movement of the body, the essence of the pose. Gesture drawing reminds the artist that no matter what you are drawing, it has action and life.
–Leaning Forward On Right Foot, drawing © 2007 by
ybonesy. All rights reserved.
This week’s topic assignment is to apply the concept of gesture drawing to writing. Find a quiet spot outside or in to sit for three minutes. Then with notebook and pen in hand, walk to an object – a chair, lamp post, shrub, shoe – and quickly capture with words what you see. Write for no more than a minute or two. (If you don’t want to keep time with a watch, use line count instead; one or two lines, not even full sentences.) Keep your hand moving the entire time, and try to keep your eyes on the object as you write. Move to another object and do the same. Do this until you have ten different objects in your notebook.
When you’re done, go to the same quiet spot where you started and read aloud what you’ve written. Share with us in Comments whichever gesture practices you’d like. Also tell us, how did this feel? Was it simply a short timed practice? Or did you get to the essence of whatever it was in front of you more quickly than you normally would in a longer timed write? What was the difference between this and a longer practice?
–Arms Outstretched, drawing © 2007 by ybonesy. All
rights reserved.
This was the first way I learned to draw in art school. I liked it because it wasn’t capturing the way something looked, but the essence or action of it. This caught my attention because drawing wasn’t my strong suit. I never thought I could draw.
Gesture drawing allowed for a looser interpretation of what I was seeing. I could use grand, sweeping strokes and circular movement on the page.
Nancy Doyle’s site is full of great info on art instruction and history. This post starts to connect the creative link between writing and art processes. I find there are more similarities than differences.
I kind of want to grab my newsprint pad and run outside to sketch the garden! Should I do that before or after my gesture write?
I’d be interested in hearing people’s experiences with learning to draw. Were there supportive people? Teachers? Were your drawings tacked to the fridge when you were growing up? Do you draw now?
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What a refreshing way to look at writing, and drawing! I like the idea of a drawing as an expression of action. The drawing then continues to move infinitely within its static, two-dimensional confines.
The only drawing lessons I’ve ever had were in public school, where the teacher encouraged us to accurately draw what we saw before us. I used to draw my own face, and to this day all the eyes I draw look like my own.
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mariacristina, I suddenly wish we had one of those mouse-drawing pads so you could sketch a face and we could see the eyes. It would be great to have an interactive drawing site.
I think most of us first learned to draw in public school. I remember an art class in junior high and learning about perspective. I couldn’t (and still can’t) draw a straight line to save me. It was so refreshing to find other ways of sketching and drawing where accuracy was less important than wild energy.
That’s what I love about writing practice, too. The language and details are not static in wild mind. And accuracy is so much less important than the wild energy that rises on the page.
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mariacristina, I meant to ask, when is the last time you sketched something? And how does it compare for you to writing?
ybonesy, I forgot to tell you how much I like your sketches. When they popped up on the blog, my face lit up. They have a lot of energy and I was thinking about them in comparison to the paintings you’ve posted. It works kind of like an overlay for me.
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ybonesy,
You have a way with nudes that is noticeable to me. I typically haven’t been a big fan of nudes, somehow often felt violated or too shocked or…something. Something that made me wince and want to get away. But with your post “Shoes Stay On” and with this one, I feel invited in/comfortable/at ease. I guess I could try to dissect why that is, but I’d probably get it wrong. The bodies seem real and typical, that’s maybe partly it. They seem human and with emotions I understand. In Oslo, there is a famous park called the Vigeland Sculpture Garden with amazing nudes. When I saw them, they brought tears to my eyes…and I’ve never cried over a sculpture. Anyway, your work with nudes is the only other time (besides Vigeland) where I’ve felt that way. Thanks, ybonesy.
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Thanks for the feedback. The more I’ve drawn nudes, the more I’ve become more comfortable with my own. But nudity and the body, it’s all loaded with so much. A simple thing, no clothes, and yet it represents and holds how we saw body as a child, how we saw sex (or didn’t), who we are now.
I just got off a plane after a grueling 36 hour trip that prevented me from logging on at all, and it’s great to be back on the blog. QM: glad you liked Nancy’s website. I did, too. I’d love to see your gesture drawings. Same with mariacristina’s.
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yb: How can I resist asking this, particularly since my collection of art predominately features the female form: How much is “Arms Outstretched”? I want it in my collection. I’m serious. It reminds me a lot of Anne St. John Hawley’s work. Mostly, I love the pose — so different, and that’s what I look for — unusual poses. So, I’m not kidding. You know I’m not. How much?
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Sinclair, I was so pleased to read your comment. Your short paragraph captured so many things about the way our culture views the nude body, particularly women.
And your comment that you cried at the Vigeland Sculpture Garden – that sums up the power of art in a few sentences, especially art about the body. What drew you to visit the sculpture garden when you were in Oslo?
ybonesy hit it on the head when she talked about how our visual interpretation of nudes takes us all kinds of places to sex and the erotic, to the way we feel about our own naked bodies, to gender and all kinds of things about the political nature of women’s bodies.
ybonesy, I wanted to comment, too, on what you wrote about the model when you were drawing nudes. I remember drawing classes at MCAD and thinking how hard it must be to be a nude model. It’s cold work and you have to stand long periods of time in one pose. Very difficult.
We had both male and female models. And if you think about how often you see the male body naked as opposed to the female body, you have all the cultural dichotomies summed up in a nutshell right there.
I, personally, find the female body to be one of the most beautiful forms on earth. And it isn’t at all about sex. It is about beauty.
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It’s helpful to read all these comments. I’m so accustomed to seeing a certain type of body (read:acceptable) in media images, that I forget that most of that isn’t real. And so to see real bodies in art is a relief. I see that thighs can be big, stomachs can pouch, breasts can sag. And still, the body is beautiful and strong.
My solo trip to Oslo was completely spur of the moment. I had no time to consider what I would do there, so went completely off suggestions of the hotel clerk. The Vigeland Sculpture Garden is a huge deal there, and I was absolutely spellbound.
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I have a drawing, my favorite nude, of a model where her shape is disportionately wide below the torso, so that she seems to be shaped like a triangle or pear. She wasn’t in real life quite as lumpy or big as I drew her, but my eye saw exaggerated portions to her body. I liked her better with those big thighs; they gave her solidness and meat and character. She walked around the room at break to look at the drawings in process and gasped when she saw mine. Do I look like that?, she asked, and I had to explain myself. In the end I think she was fine with it, but at first I believe she was horrified. I guess the point I’m trying to make is I, too, find the human body to be beautiful, and the more that body veers from society’s ideal, the more beautiful the body is to my artist’s eye.
Sharonimo, what an incredible compliment. I do know you have a collection, and the only thing is that my gesture drawings are done on newsprint, which is not meant to last. Already they are yellowed and thinning. But we can chat offline. I remembered I have a photo I think you might love by a photographer friend of mine. I’d like to show it to you, and if you like it, it’s yours.
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[…] Jun 20th, 2007 by ybonesy My mother’s gift of thighs, thick Like insulation in a withering summer -Inspired by comments in this post. […]
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[…] -from Topic post, Gesture […]
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[…] Jun 27th, 2007 by ybonesy A black Lucent telephone with three lines. It sits mute on the desk. No one ever calls anymore. They send IMs instead. A color photograph 14 by 10 of 20 or so people in China the Chinese all wearing black rain coats and with black straight hair the U.S. people are squinting in the sun gray, blong, bald, brown heads thinking, Look at me now. There’s a mirror on the wall across from where I sit. It reminds me of my vanity moreso because the engraving on it tells me how good I am. My desk has a life of its own If it were a landscape it would be the badlands yellow stickies that I seem to not want to kill survivors they are persisting day to day. Arch in my right foot lifts from the leather sole of my sandal. I see a shadow there. Army green backpack a large hole at the base where the back of the backpack rubs against my back. A different kind of backrub this backpack goes begging for. A co-worker hunched down in his chair the palms of his hands resting on the keyboard his fingers tapping lightly. He learned to type the right way; Mrs. O’Malley would scold his posture. A quiet spot near the window I hear the air conditioner a person shuffling paper in the cube next door and the sound of graphite on notepad. A cloud that looks like the lion on Wizard of Oz. Puffy cheeks, nose in the air, curly mane on the day before he meets the wizard. The cloud, too, is on an important mission to somewhere. Artificial Christmas tree 7 feet tall. Red bead garland laced along the branches. Tree is stuck in the corner next to the file cabinet waiting for Christmas. -From Topic post, Gesture. […]
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[…] -from Topic post, Gesture […]
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