Maybe we should ditch the timer in favour of learning the other approach and just be mindful not to overdo it? The timer actually might be hindering growth and cementing in bad habits since we are approaching it in the same ‘outline the contour’ way every time. Maybe it benefits pro artists that already have the skill set, but I am now thinking it might not be doing people that are new to gesture any favours. We want to get better while doing these exercises and improving our approach isn’t always about speed.
From my understanding too, the point of gesture is to find the spirit or essence and push the pose beyond what we are seeing so that we can develop under drawings that have a more dynamic look to them so that when we actually do that final drawing over top, there is still some dynamic ‘pushed’ aspect left in it. This just isn’t coming through to me in my gestures at the moment, which is why I think I am approaching it in the wrong way since i am still so focused on those contour lines. I also seem to have a tendency to try to complete the full outline and not leave any areas for the eye to just fill in on its own.
I was watching Glenn Vilppu’s approach last night and it’s more about ‘feeling’ the flow of the body and he uses numerous curved lines with breaks in between them to lay in the flow of the rhythms. He then does another pass over the drawing with the wrap around contours and what he calls containing or ‘bracketing’ areas like the ribcage and pelvis and leaves some areas completely undefined. From what I have seen of Michael Hampton’s drawing, his also looks similar with the contour lines and he has more of that flowing feel I am after.
