Chapter 5: Elements of the Pose
This is not a bad drawing. But I felt it missed a very subtle thing going on in the pose,
which a few lines and some definite angles captured.
In this pose I didn’t feel the head was leaning on the hand. Through the use of “surface
line” I lowered the face so it angled into the fingers to show the weight of the head. The
hand and arm became a tangent, so I bent the wrist to introduce an angle (which helped to
show the weight of the head also). The trapezius muscles and shoulders became too
symmetrical, so I offset them with more interesting angles and introduced a neck with its
three-dimensional overlap.
Straight against Curve: Squash and Stretch in the Pose ..........................................
Simply put, a straight line is the symbol for a stretch, and a bent or folded line is the
symbol for a squash. So whether the action is a broad stretch of the arm and body, or a
subtle stretch on a face cause by a smile or an open mouth, the symbols are applied to the
anatomy to put these ideas over.
In quick, "first-impression" gesture drawing, two lines is all you need to locate and
suggest the various parts of the arms and legs—preferably one straight line on the stretch
side and one curved line on the squash side.
