So, yesterday’s post didn’t happen due to my freaking out over a design project (not the self portrait) which my computer wouldn’t open.  Apparently, my trusty ol’ Mac is getting just that – old.  Thankfully, I was able to use my amazing sister’s computer and turn it in just in time.  Whew!  I’m guess a shopping trip will be in order soon.  Today, I have had some errands to run and am about to sit down to work from my photo reference on my portrait.  I will post both the reference and the preliminary sketches after I’ve worked on them a bit.

I want to share with you today some of my sketches which demonstrate a warm up exercise in drawing (I’m sure it can also be used in painting and the like). This technique is referred to as gesture drawing.  It is intended to be done quickly in order to capture, as my drawing teacher loves to call it, the gestalt of the subject.  As I said, it is a warm up exercise, however, it can also be used as the 1st layer in a drawing, giving the artist a basic layout, with all the proportions and movements occurring.  As you can see, I have birdies, my cat a couple of times and a few from our trip to the beach last fall.  I have also done a selfie with a yellow gesture as the bottom layer. I will be using this technique on my project and will try to share as many stages as I can.  Hope you enjoy and have a great weekend!