Thoughts On A Natural Way to Draw
Notes on Gesture, Drawing as Touch and Feeling
According to many artists, the ability to create art is dependent on the ability to see one’s subject. To properly see something means to properly observe it. And this observational process seems to vary from artist to artist.
So far, I’ve read two art related books, Betty Edward’s Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and Kimon Nicolaides's The Natural Way to Draw. Both have been immensely helpful for someone like me who has zero formal art training. Today, I’d like to reflect on some of the concepts taught in The Natural Way to Draw.
Out of the two, Nicolaides, an early 20th century art teacher who taught at the Arts Student League in New York City, heavily emphasizes gesture drawings in his book. In fact, he asserts that students who wants to seriously learn art should complete hours of gesture drawings (in addition to contour drawing) before they even consider studying proportion and anatomy.
Gesture drawing, essentially, is a training exercise that involves capturing the overall essence of a subject. Ideally, you would complete gesture drawings in short time bursts and focus on whatever the life of your particular subject is.
Nicolaides would often emphasize approaches beyond seeing for his exercises, such as imagining touching the subject while drawing and feeling whatever impulse a subject contains.
“Merely to see… is not enough. It is necessary to have a fresh, vivid, physical contact with the object you draw through as many of the senses as possible — and especially through the sense of touch.
Sometimes students ask whether they should think of gesture in this or or the other way. My answer to that is that you should rely on sensation rather than thought. Simply respond with your muscles to what the model is doing as you watch, and let your pencil record that response automatically, without deliberation. Loosen up. Relax.
By using your feeling or imagination you can relate the gestures you see to those which are more universally understood. For example, the base of the lamp may have a sturdy, smug look which suggests to you a well-fed prosperous business man with a neat collar holding his head up. From an impression of that sort you get a very clear picture of the lamp…Such observation is more instructive, as well as more interesting, than an observation of static lines and plane…”
This is not the kind of content I expected to read. A lot of art-related books and online articles I had skimmed through before diving into this book teach drawing in a dry way. Or, they would teach as if it involves complicated logic and mathematical formulas.
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Nicolaides explains his concepts in a way that is poetic, borderline romantic at times. I love how he dives into the unseen magic of drawing by emphasizing the sense and imagination. His writing pulls back the curtain, giving us a glimpse of the journey we are about to embark on. And he does this while being accessible and taking his readers seriously.
Anyone who considers to read Nicolaides's book should be prepared for a good chunk of exercises to complete. Here’s just one of his many exercise charts:
I’m currently about 70 percent finished reading the book but am now realizing I will need to re-do the exercises since I only did samples of them. And was admittedly too lazy to read the instructions… And after plowing through the gesture and contour drawing exercises, I took a break from the book. I’ll admit, I was overwhelmed by the schedules.
Recently, in my quest to finally start studying anatomy, I’ve discovered an amazing free resource called ArtProf. As a preliminary step, Professor Clara Lieu recommends complete gesture drawings from Eadward Muybridge’s The Human Figure in Motion.
I’m grateful for the new resource I’ve found. At the same time, I feel like I must at least finish reading the rest of Nicolaides’s work to get a firm baseline for my practice. If you look any art curriculum, most of them start with gesture drawing exercises, which shows how influential Nicolaides is in his teaching methods.
After re-reading snippets of the book, I appreciate the variety and depth contained within the pages of A Natural Way to Draw. His method of instruction contains gesture drawing in its foundation and goes on to include exercises on composition, proportion, anatomy, and even color. This book truly is a gift that I have my heart set on finishing.
