It's true! Students perhaps thought the Art Lady was being more eccentric than usual, but in between embarrassed giggles, they eventually volunteered to model different emotions with just their body language and posture -- WITHOUT TALKING! Why? Because our bodies can communicate as much about us as our words. BODY LANGUAGE is the essence of GESTURE DRAWING, and gesture is the essence of human-like sculpture. (See next column.)
GESTURE DRAWINGS...The new year saw Studio Art students trying some new things: drawing the human body in preparation for creating a figure in three dimensions.
Students took notes on the proportions of a human figure, then did a series of quick gesture drawings to respond "from the gut" to the basic posture and attitude of live models.
Sometimes these rapid sketches were nothing more than stick figures showing approximate proportions and angles of whatever the model was doing. (There's not much else you can get down on paper in a minute or less!)
As the drawings grew longer, students were able to revise and refine slightly, fleshing out the figures and adding wrinkles and character.
The drawings culminated in the charcoal sketches exhibited here.
Charcoal drawing above by Stewart Vogel III
Gallery of Gesture Drawings
(Clockwise from bottom left) Charcoal Figures by Maryum N., Ella Dimezza, Amber Scalia, Caitlyn Shipley and Rebecca Towne
SLIDE SHOW (Below, hover over the image to reveal the "Play" prompt. Click on Play to start the slide rotation.)