Gesture Drawing

Started working through Glen Vilppu's Drawing Manual last week!  I've only read the first two exercises so far, but I can already see some results.  He warned us in his written word that people may be tempted to skip all those basic steps that he teaches because it looks so easy and pointless, but it honestly helps.  If only I had been patient earlier instead of flipping through the pages, and go "pshh that seems easy enough".  It was good to finally sit down and go through the book.  I find when I rewrite notes from books into shorter form, I tend to grasp the information better and am discouraged to just skim through parts that might be important.

The first exercise was the jot down the overall gesture line of the body, arms and legs.  Not necessarily copying the outer shape of the body but feeling the movement and letting your pencil capture that shape.

The second exercise was to play around with spheres, and how different the lines can communicate to the person looking at an image depending on how its drawn.  Just the way you place a line can determine whether the shape is in front, behind or twisted in relation to another shape.  I like how I can get a more logical take on drawing.

I guess I would usually depend on my artistic instinct (whatever I have anyways), but I feel that starting to learn the fundamentals properly is allowing me to make sense of it all.  Part of me thinks that I should have focussed on this earlier, but better late than never right?

Okies, gotta keep trucking with these gestures from posemaniacs everyday!