Gesture Drawings

I started with gestures.

Mattesi's book focuses on portraying the personality and experience of your subject.  This requires close analysis of the muscles, tensions, areas of stress, etc.  Every line should have an opinion by drawing in verbs.  Each line you draw should describe ONE idea and ONE explanation.
The books also talks about how it is important to increase your knowledge about your subjects by studying the bone and muscle structure underneath the skin.

Here is the first set.  I'm sticking with acrylic for these exercises.  I figure building efficiency may require a focus on one medium. All of these gesture drawing are timed for 1 minute each-to increase my speed as well as focus on the main aspects of the birds only.

I hope to display force by painting in lines: where the lines thicken resemble the push towards that area.  If the bird is standing still, I still need to show the sense of gravity pulling the bird down.  I think #20 displays that best.

Painting flight is much more difficult than birds that are standing still.  I have to pay attention to the 3 main forces= the head and the 2 wings.  It looks like the head of the bird is usually the leading force of its movement.  #25, 26 & 27 are my favorites here.

I realized that some of these are confusing.  There are too many equally thick lines all over the place.  I need to try and find one line that shows the main gesture and then let all the other lines play off of that.

If only that tail line on the bottom-most bird was thinner, this would've been perfect!