5 and 10 Minute Painted Gestures
5 and 10 Minute Painted Gestures
Gesture drawing has been a reliable foundational practice to build ones skills rapidly, and for good reason. Quick repetitive practice is well documented to accelerate improvement as one has a chance to learn from and make mistakes quickly..
When done right there is also a deeper connection conveyed in these gestures.. a living essence that is achieved due to the artist ‘feeling’ the pose rather than just seeing it. In these quick paint sketches I attempted to transpose this act of conveying the impulse rather than the position of the ‘pose’ too, as one does in gesture drawings.
Now though alla prima paintings are a staple of the daily paint practice, they usually consist painting a complete painting within a few hours or at the very least a half hour.. I decided to try taking this a step further though by doing quick paint sketches in as little as 5 minutes, hopefully tapping in to the advantages of gesture drawing.. I’ve not heard of this before but with new restrictions on my time I was looking for more effective alternatives to get in better painting practice, consistently.. Can’t make any excuses if it’s less than half an hour!..
To keep it simple I’ve just focused on one feature at a time ( eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hands and feet thus far ) with each session consisting of just :
3 x 5 minutes + 1 x 10 minute gesture painting sketches focused on just one feature each time.
No getting precious here! Each gesture is rubbed off as soon as I’m done!
Short vid of some other gestures in action..
Results have been mixed thus far and I wasn’t always the best at documenting the best results except these few. It’s been a good challenge thus far though, and has helped in getting out the brushes more consistently after a long dry spell for me. Better yet, though harder to handle, I’m using up my cheap ‘Marie’ paints, stored since me ol’ college days!..
It will be good if I can eventually get in some longer sessions though, focused on just one painting, as things learnt in longer paintings feed in to the shorter ones and vice versa..
Hope to post more with some improvement!..
Ta now!..