Gesture Drawing, Digitally Altered

Gesture of a Man with a Frisbee, Digitally Altered

Gesture drawings and paintings have a life of their own. The spontaneous nature of these quick sketches can make for an exciting visual experience. For me, the gesture often has more vitality and life than a detailed sketch. They are done in quick, lively strokes. Accidental spurts of expressiveness happen when you're working quickly in quick brush or pencil. It's hard to capture that on purpose. A more carefully executed “final” drawing doesn’t always have the same visual excitement. The first sketch (above) is the original gesture drawing. The other ones have been digitally altered to show different treatments. I've tried to suggest mixed media.

Here, the gesture drawing is used as a skeleton for further build-up. These examples were left in a sketchy state, but the figures may be built up to any level that the artist likes. The gesture can even be a nice work of art in itself, as in the “sumi” stylization (last figure).

Transferred from my old blog...