One Of The Most Crucial Parts When Learning to Draw People

Gesture Line or Action Line Drawing

For advanced, intermediate and beginners drawing lessons, great emphasis should be placed on the most important step of learning how to draw people and that is the gesture line! Some artists have the gesture line the whole length of the subject, from head to toe, other artists have the gesture line showing the location of the spine. But the gesture line idea is the same.

Finding gesture lines

Start by drawing a single smooth line, which goes through most of the person's pose (see attached images for some examples).

Watching people moving around will help tremendously, observe how their limbs move with or against the curve of the spine. If you notice the spine always keeps it's natural, smooth curve.

A great little bit of advice is to draw stick figures, starting with a gesture line and then adding the head, arms and legs.

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