Expressive Figure Drawing Techniques

• 1 min. short (vine charcoal)
• 1 min short (eraser pencils)
• 1 min. short (2 tips)
• 1 min. short (rubbing ink process)

• 1 min. short (artist model)
• 74 min video (draw along)
• Expressive Drawing Track

• A lot of the drawing process is about your mindset, it’s not all about what your hand is physically doing.
• Often people strive for accuracy in figure drawing, but that can often limit you dramatically in terms of exploring various stylistic approaches.
• You can define an “expressive” drawing however you want: perhaps the drawing has an emotion you want to show, a specific type of movement.
• An important part of loosening up is keeping your drawing very flexible, so that you are willing to make dramatic changes.
• Often people don’t want to make dramatic changes to their drawing, and just end up going over the lines that they already have.
• Consider your edges, have a range of ones that are very soft, vs. some that are very blunt and graphic.

• At the beginning of a drawing, try to avoid outlining the figure; it’s slow and makes you think about the figure in fragments, instead of as a cohesive whole.
• Try to draw with very broad strokes, so that you are drawing with your entire arm, not just your hand.
• Speed can help a lot at the beginning of a drawing, so that you don’t fuss or spend too much time on a single area.
• Think about your erasers as drawing tools, they are not just there for getting rid of mistakes!
• You can use the erasers to “push” the charcoal across the surface of the paper.
• Erasers are much better than smudging with your fingers.
• Erasers can show the direction of a mark, and have a lot more tension as opposed to smudging which makes your marks mushy.

Art Supplies

• Vine Charcoal 
• Kneaded eraser 
• Generals Factis Pen Style Eraser
• Drawing Board
• Compressed Charcoal
• Strathmore Charcoal Paper
• Staedtler Mars White Plastic Eraser

Reference Photos