How to Draw

Gesture Drawings

Introduction

A fly is buzzing around your head. Raise your hand and smack that insect. Did you miss? Try to hit it again.

What motions did your hand and body go through trying to eliminate the fly? Did your hand make wide, swishing movements? How would that look in a drawing? How would you draw something that happened so quickly? You can draw the movement someone is doing and you can capture the feeling, but you have to learn to give up detail.

A drawing that shows this movement is called a gesture drawing. You can imagine that such quick drawings will not be able to show details, like eyelashes or any facial features. Details are not important in gesture drawing.