A great thing for any artist to do is gesture drawing. This kind of fast-paced drawing captures the form of a subject and makes it identifiable, but not too detailed or clean. It helps build many essential skills such as understanding proportions and muscle structure, and with practice it can help artists capture scenes quickly and effortlessly. This is useful when drawing a quick moving subject, such as an athlete in motion, or an outdoor scene with many people (downtown, for example).
What I like to start with is a large piece of paper, so that I can have many gesture drawings on one page. It seems to add to the artsy effect. Get a reference photo, or even better, ask a live subject to pose for you. Then you can start your timer and go! Typically people draw anywhere between 30 seconds and 10 minutes. Personally I like two minute poses best, but you can try any time that works well for you.
Once you start drawing, it’s important to remember to keep moving. Gesture drawing is very fluid and fast, and not too clean. Don’t stop to erase any lines – just draw another one in the correct position and forget about the old ones.
For human subjects, I like to start with a centre line. This line should sort of go along the spine area and show how your subject is moving. Then I draw a line for where the head goes, a line for the shoulder tilt, and one for the hips. I fill in the masses (head, biceps, quads, torso, calves, forearms, etc.) and sometimes I draw the joints as well. Then if you have some time left, you can go back and fill in some detail.
That’s just one technique – everyone draws differently. There are numerous tutorials on the internet which are really helpful. For the drawings above, I used this website.  It gives you references and times you, with adjustable intervals and styles, along with lessons, tips, and critique forums. This WikiHow article is also helpful, with a good step-by-step explanation of drawing.
Gesture drawing is fun and relaxing, and helps tremendously with improving drawing ability. I highly recommend you try it out!
~Kathy(:
