Chapter 4: The First Impression................................................................................
Try this experiment: look at your surroundings—a panorama of scenery is ideal for this—
and direct your mind to slip in and out of some selected modes. First concentrate on
color. You should be able to eliminate all the other elements and see just areas of color.
Then switch to dark and light, then to masses, then to the three-dimensional qualities of
things near and far. Now, try to see all of those things at once. Your mind may have to do
a little jig, skipping back and forth between them, for it's rather hard to concentrate on
more than one thing at a time. But if you keep at it, it will all come together and the
totality of the scene will hit you like a bomb.
That is the first impression I speak about. It is sometimes referred to as a moment of
inspiration; a moment of utter clarity; that instant of pure seeing that Betty Edwards
(Drawing On The Artist Within) calls the “Ah - Ha!” moment. Actually it’s just an
extremely vivid summation of all the important elements before you. It hits you so hard
and clear it is relatively easy to recall when you need a fresh look at it.
Getting a strong first impression is the first, necessary step to analyzing the components
of the pose.
Short-pose Sketching .................................................................................................
When practicing gesture drawing with a live model, the poses should be relatively short,
so that a quick first impression can be summoned, worked on and developed—you won’t
have time to get involved in detail or “cleanup.”
Short pose sketching also excites you to a higher pitch of awareness so the creative juices
flow more freely, and seeing becomes more acute. Quick sketching promulgates a feeling
of spontaneity in the drawings. Most importantly, the short pose condenses the whole
process of drawing so the wholeness of the gesture predominates and the gestural
qualities of the pose permeate the entire process of drawing.
In the time it takes some artists to do one drawing (and that one often nowhere near
completed) others have sketched in three or four tries. This encourages experimentation
and looking for alternate interpretations of the gesture. Trying for variations of the pose
will sharpen your observation and your hand/eye coordination, and help you to seek out
subtle nuances of the gesture. After all, if you had to draw several of the Disney
characters in the same pose, you’d have to vary each one according to the personality of
that character.
In class, I try to get the artists to stop copying the model, especially in a ponderous
fashion wherein the gesture is difficult to feel, and so often takes a back seat to the
details. I encourage flexibility. Sketching quickly and loosely will help you to be more
creative, inventive, inspired and will train you to be more adaptable and versatile (more
fun, too).