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NEEDING HELP WITH "GESTURE POSING".
I'm doing more paid sitting for fine art and figure modeling art classes but am needing more guidance and experience in actual posing, particularly Gestures. I'd like to woork with local Artists, Film Makers, Photographers and others who are experienced in this area and more than willing to model TF in exchange for some assistance in this area. Studio or private modeling is fine, classroom sittings are even better. Even if you are not familiar with such or can't offer any help, perhaps you can help me to network with someone who can? Best to Private Message me and thanks for any help or suggestions you can offer! Nov 02 15 04:14 am Link Hi! So, I'm a life model based in Columbus, OH. I can't offer you help in finding people where you are, but in terms of posing, I'd offer the following suggestions. -Go to the art museum and/or study lots of paintings and drawings of models. Try the poses you're seeing in these pieces of art. Same with sculpture. You have a wide variety of ready made posing material right there, and the poses work for artists. -Have you ever had a dance class? A background in dance tends to help a lot with posing for art classes as you better understand line and form and how your body will look. If you don't want to pay for dance lessons, perhaps get a DVD or book with different dance routines outlined and use some of the poses from that. -Here's a link to many nude posing suggestions: http://www.artmodeltips.com/poses/ -Here's a link to some informational stuff: http://www.artmodeltips.com/models/how_ … art_model/ -Here are more posing ideas: http://www.posespace.com/ Good luck! Nov 02 15 08:52 am Link Didn't MM used to block all caps in titles? Nov 02 15 09:09 am Link In general, gesture poses should be more dynamic and action based vs. static. I always check in with the teacher or director to see what they are looking for, and to get a sense of poses that would and would not work in that setting. A few things I keep in mind when doing gesture poses: -Vary where different parts of my body point. If we're thinking of a clock face: right foot at 12, left foot at 9, shoulders at 3, etc etc... I picture a 3 dimensional grid and make sure my poses are interesting from every angle. Find something that works for you. -Again with the clock face analogy, if I'm facing towards 12 for the first pose, I rotate on through after each pose. -If I did a "strong" pose, I usually follow it with a "collapsed" pose. Looked up one pose, look down the next. Vary the energy in each pose. -Switch which is your weight bearing foot (or stand squarely on both). Use a pole if available to have another point of contact with the ground. If you twist your spine to the right for one pose, twist to the left for the next. -If you are stuck trying to come up with poses, think of everyday actions: sweeping a broom, running, swinging a baseball bat, etc. If you have any sort of movement vocabulary, use it. (Dance, sports, etc) The vast majority of classes and groups I pose for, the shortest pose will be 1 minute, followed by 2 minute, 5 minute, and 10 minute poses. I consider 10 minute poses to still be gesture poses, but a lot of models do not (it all depends on what is comfortable or not for you personally). In general, I don't do any seated poses for gesture poses; sometimes using a pole or stool as a prop is welcome. Again, I really emphasize checking in with each class, because some classes I pose for I'm expected to do 5 second poses to start, some I'm expected to do very specific "classic art model" standing poses and the shortest ones are 10 minutes. Hopefully some of this was helpful! ETA: I really recommend dropping in to a session here: https://www.modelmayhem.com/724405 I worked there a bunch many years ago, I really like the people that run it. Nov 02 15 10:55 am Link Any sort of dance/yoga/karate pose is good. Even if you don't actually know/do any of those things, just sorta fake it or look up images and then mimic those -- I use my time gesture posing to pretend I'm graceful and I do a lot of "dancer" type poses. I'm always on the lookout for interesting stances. Sometimes from movies -- the arms-spread "titanic" poses, for instance. Or in The Walking Dead when I saw Morgan with his stick thing I was like, "oooh, I can do some of those poses!" (since I often pose with a staff.) Just in front of the mirror I make up poses to see how they look. Even just paying attention to someone who really gestures when they're talking can help give you ideas. I love posing with a staff/stick/broomhandle. You can use it as a walking stick, if it's a short pose you can gesture with it like a spear, it's a way to keep your hands/arms up high without losing the position, you can use it to stabilize yourself when doing more complicated things. Pay attention to every part of your body. Hands, arms, legs, hips. Don't forget about something! Especially pay attention to your hips, they dictate a lot of what the rest of your body does to counteract them. I often do a lot of poses where I concentrate most (not all!) of my weight on one leg with the other out to the side so that sort of juts one hip up. (This is called contrapposto -- it's really interesting, your shoulders sort of go in the opposite angle as your hips creating an S-like posture.) Feel free to twist your body as much as possible -- face your hips forward, then look behind you as far as possible, stuff like that. Make sure to constantly be rotating every pose so everyone in the classroom can see you at different angles. Also remember that showing your back can be just as artistic and interesting as a front-facing pose. Plus when you rotate, you don't have to be *as* concerned about doing a different pose every single time, since from the artist point of view, a different angle of the same pose can be as interesting and "new" as a completely different pose. Probably most importantly, pay attention to the class and what they're talking about (besides helping you as a model, also, hey -- free art class!) Like, if it's a lesson on anatomy, you might want to do something that shows your muscles or is more 'spread out' than other poses and probably something that isn't too complicated. If it's a beginner class learning about proportion, it's also helpful to them to keep it simple. If it's an advanced class that knows all the basics and mostly just needs practice, make it more complicated to challenge them or throw in odd angles. Also, completely don't be afraid of looking silly or having fun with it. Gesture poses are the warm-up and for a lot of artists they're the 'fun' part of class before they get down to the 'work' part, so make it interesting for them! Good luck! My portfolio has some gesture poses as well as some other figure drawing poses, feel free to check it out for ideas. Dec 19 15 05:12 am Link Practice a lot at home in front of a mirror, so you can see what the poses look like to the artists. There are a lot of good figure reference books, years ago I was gifted one "The Nude Figure, a Visual Reference for the Artist" by Mark Edward Smith. Several figure models I know love his books, but there are also many others available. I use many of the poses in that book for gestures, and come up with others on my own. The earlier suggestion of a simple prop or two is good. Have a couple of things within quick reach, and don't use the same one for every gesture. A hat, a scarf or towel, a cane, or the broom handle are all commonly used. In the figure drawing classes I have modelled for they typically want quick changes for gestures and set a 1 minute or 2 minute timer that beeps, or the leader will call out "change" and when that happens, you have a couple of seconds to present your next pose. I would classify anything longer than 2 minutes as a regular pose rather than a gesture. You can hold a lot of poses for 2 minutes or less that you couldn't possibly do for 10 minutes. Dec 19 15 06:35 am Link |