Sunday, October 03, 2021

How I capture movement in figures - original oil pastel figurative drawing

loose figurative drawing dancers colorful energetic

One of my very favorite artistic endeavors is capturing the energy of dancers.  For jitterbug dancers I just turn on some rock 'n' roll music, then start making gestural figurative marks with my black oil pastel; I rely mainly on my memory of jive dance performances to flesh out the figures, adding very little detail. 
And yeah, I do dance a little - such great music, who could resist!  The lines are mostly in segments with a little smearing to indicate movement and energy.  Even when a bit of line ends up in a place I might not have intended,  I often just leave it - a surprise here and there.  Music is really inspirational when drawing dancers so I have lots of rock, tango, flamenco (gypsy) and some salsa music to get me going.  I used to attend a life drawing class where the monitor had mambo music playing as we drew from the model.  We all agreed we had never done our gestures so fast and with such emotion!   Of course, there are many different things that encourage artists to make art - what inspires you to draw or paint?  

This drawing - "More Jivin' #5" is on 5 x 7" Pastelbord.  Thanks for stopping by!

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