Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes Volume 1

143 Feel, as Well as See, the Gesture

While working from a live model, I have found it is better to draw quickly and spontaneously, rather than slowly and overly careful. In the time it takes some artists to do one drawing (and that one often nowhere near completed) others have sketched in three or four tries. This encourages experimentation and looking for alternate interpretations of the gesture. Trying for variations of the pose will sharpen your observation and your hand–eye coordination, and help you to seek out subtle nuances of the gesture. After all, if you had to draw several of the Disney characters in the same pose you’d have to vary each one according to the personality of that character.

In the evening class, I try to get the artists ...