[MCMA]

Hi, as I am new a lot of my poses are stiff. I figured three things can counter this. Practice, Draw from life, and Croqui classes. The latter two is not available to me right now. My friends don't have the patience to sit still for 5 hours hehe, and no croqui classes running this term which leaves us to daily drawing routine practice.

I am wondering what kind of exercises one can do for poses and countering stiffness. Any methods you can recommend? Philosophies on this? Any hints and tips are welcomed.

One trick I picked up somewhere is to randomly make 5 dots in thumbnail size. Better yet, ask a friend to add a long sequence of 5 random dots. Then start to connect simple shapes to these dots. 1 for the head, 2 arms, 2 legs. The objective is to be quick and not think too much. Some fresh poses are bound to come out of this. Excuse my 10 second illustration *blush*

Like so:



Any other techniques or methods one can do for practice? Willing to learn and practice hard, but need some hinters.

Kind regards,
Matt
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The Dark Ages was caused by the Y1K problem.

[Naeem]

here's one;
your eyes can betray you. so when you're drawing a human/animal/ ANYTHING, measure it with some other part of it. lets say that you're just standing there and i'm drawing you. To make sure I get your proportions right and ur form right, i would take any thin, stiff material that is long, and measure from your nose to your ankle to see if they align in a perfect line , etc. etc.. it really helps to get the proportions right that way.

here's another;
start off with basic form first. imagine the person in skeletal form (thats how i do it at least) and make their pose with lines. thin, stick figure type lines. dots signify the important joints. one for base of neck, one for each elbow, one for each wrist, one for each knee and one for each ankle. the torso can be summed up with a big horizontal oval with a dip.

thats how i've been practicing my stuff. learning it at my life drawing classes.

[jfrancis]

http://vilppustudio.com/dvd.htm

I think the problem with your 5 random dot approach is that so much of a pose is in the capturing of a figure's balance and weight.

What's the line of gravity? Where is the center of gravity? Which is the weight-bearing leg? What happens to its hip (it goes up) Which is the free leg? What happens to its hip? (it sags) Once you've established the swing of the hips, is there a counterswing to the shoulders? (often)

...stuff like that ...

[Naeem]

here's an interesting link i found
http://www.dangheno.net/pteachingspg1.htm

[MCMA]

Thanks much for the replies it is appreciated a lot.

annisahmad and jfrancis good info. You're right for practice this is a bad method. The 5 dot approach is more of a doodle when you're out of ideas and quickly need to find inspiration. One can draw 100s of these fairly quick and you're bound to find one pose you like and can develop that further with a proper method.

A friend recommended this method to find out what's wrong with a pose.
Position yourself in the exact same pose as you have drawn/painted. Freeze.
After awhile you will be tired and seek a more relaxed pose automatically. When this happens you will know in which areas to accentuate the pose, where it's relaxed, where the weight shifts to. This has helped me understand.
I see now that it's also the essence of what jfrancis describes above.

Second tip from same friend. Art supply shops usually have poseable wooden figures as a tool/referrence. I will look into this as well.
_________________
The Dark Ages was caused by the Y1K problem.

[Capt. Fred]

the thing abut the form is especially right.
it's hard to draw someone with an elongated shuolder or whaever, if you're not dealing with the shapes, "how do the sahpes go?". Deal with eggs on balls on poles on blobs and it's gotta work itself out a little better. Makes it easier to draw someone in perspective too - easier than trying to guess the shapes.

So deal with a crude 3d model in your mind when you draw, no 'lines' only masses. Overtime, your human-3d model file in your brain gets more advanced. (Don't look at my work for examples, I'm still a beginer!)

The hip bone's conneted to the - leg bone, the leg bone's connectd to the � (oh wiat maybe that cartoon was only in england, The Skellington's was it called?).

If your drawings begin to get a little contrived, then go back the other way, do some exciting shapes and find a middle ground where it looks best. but there's no reason you should expect to trace the outline of an awesome pose straight off, be prepared for some construction.

[MCMA]

Good input Fred. I do like your work though. Especially the dark corridor and many many of the mood boards and speedpaintings in the sketches section. Didn't Michelangelo say at an age of 80 "I think I am just learning how to paint"?

Question: Why only masses and no lines? What about the line of action or the mitten-line? Or maybe keep the two processes apart? Sometimes practice with lines and cylinders and sometimes with mass(shapes) and no lines?

Since tracing came up I'll never revert to lazyness. Just to be very clear on the purpose of this thread and my goals. It's not about finding the "best" way of doing it, it's not about finding the fastest or easiest way. I'm looking for an array of weapons and I will try them all in my mission to counter stiffness and boring poses. It's about seeing and understanding to me.
This is why all of your input, philosophies and methods etc are so welcomed and appreciated.

This summer I hope to pick up speed when sketching so that I can go down to the park or downtown with a sketchpad and draw more from life without the subject matter moving on to greener pastures in the middle of my process.

Have a nice day now,
Matt
_________________
The Dark Ages was caused by the Y1K problem.