Finding the Gesture Again

10-18-12 Cretacolor Nero extra-soft pencil (10-minute pose)

Back in June, I took an intensive figure drawing workshop to learn to “find the gesture” in a figure. Now that the weather is getting colder and wetter, I decided it was a good time to check out an open session at Gage’s figure drawing studio to see if I remembered anything from June. Indeed, even with the first two-minute pose, finding the gesture of the shoulders and hips came back to me fairly quickly. By the time we were doing 20-minute poses three hours later, I was exhausted and convinced that just because I remember how to draw lines through the shoulders and hips doesn’t mean I can draw figures! Back to the drawing board (or, in my case, the sketchbook), and I’ll definitely be back to open sessions at Gage.