/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

Part of the problem is that gesture is often taught too abstractly and and at the same time, too rigidly. You're told to "feel" the gesture and to not draw the contours, but rather to capture something intangible like the "motion" or "flow" of the figure. Yet at the same time, every figure is to be approached in the same rote way. Rib cage, spine, pelvis, c-s-i curves only.

Personally I haven't found a single approach that works best for every figure. Every figure presents unique and interesting problems. There's so many ways to conceptualize something as complex as a body, so many relationships between the parts that can perceived, it feels like the process can never be reduced to plug-and-chug steps.

Here's a drawing I did recently. This is a pretty typical workflow if I see a pose I like and basically want to copy it as is. There's nothing all that abstract here. In fact you could think of these interpretations as grids: free flowing grids to aid in placing masses and features. It's to help keep focus on the big picture arrangement of the larger parts, so I don't get lost in the weeds of details and smaller parts.

The thing is: this works really well. Really, really well. You almost cannot truly fuck up a drawing if you analyze it this way. But I still don't care for how my final drawing turned out. I think it's too studied and almost too correct in some ways despite the proportion changes.
Right now I'm trying to work gesture into my drawings in a more naturalistic, sketching-based way first, and then use the "grid" method to refine. Point is, there's no wrong way to do it. Try everything until you find a method that makes sense to you.