Embracing Intuition in Figure Drawing

When embarking on my first animation project, I quickly learned that I did not possess the drawing skills required to execute at the quality I wanted.

Now begins a series where I chronical my progress from eight months of consistent drawing practice—specifically drawing people, naked or in public, but typically not both. (Haha.)

I’ve been drawing since a young age, so much of the technical skill comes to me as second nature. This post isn’t about the technical aspect of drawing, but the intuitive side that comes once you’ve reached a certain level of proficiency. Once you no longer have to focus all of your conscious thought on the small movements your hand and wrist are making to make marks on the page, this is what you can do to grow next.

This is about getting to the place beyond conscious thought.

Recent work:

Before practice and mindset shifts:

I attribute my dramatic improvements to reading FORCE: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators, and this post is an elaboration on the concepts presented there. Here are the realizations that led to my growth.

Drawing Life = Capturing Movement

Drawing people is DIFFERENT than drawing inanimate objects. We are animated. We house life, energy, and potential energy. There is always an action or a potential action. The person is always thinking a thought and feeling an emotion. Either a person is in movement, or they are about to be—it is their thoughts that are in movement.

As an artist, your job is to capture this movement.

We are not static, but dynamic. We are always moving, and so are our thoughts, as are the cells that keep us alive. Everything within us is always changing and moving.

These are the things I focus on capturing when drawing somebody, instead of just on rendering their form accurately as if they were only hunks of flesh. There is a huge difference between drawing life and drawing an inanimate building. Let’s embrace the life within, let’s exaggerate, discover personalities and emotions, experiment, and go wild!

Show appreciation for this life with every sketch, no matter how rough.

See how the body’s counteracting forces create balance.

We are always counterbalancing the effects of gravity. We are on the verge of falling all the time. Our muscles have become so used to balancing us to keep us upright, that we don’t notice these subtle muscle flexes like we did when we were toddlers learning how to walk. Nonetheless, this balancing act is still happening with our every movement.

Let’s focus on this balance, because understanding why the body and its muscles are responding the ways they do allows us to intuitively draw people better.

“But wait,” you might be thinking, “If I want to get better at drawing people shouldn’t I study the technical terms for muscles and bones?”

“Shouldn’t I get my medical license? If I’m a doctor, then I’d really know anatomy! So of course I should get a medical license so I can draw!”

No.

Stop.

Back it up.

This argument is surprisingly relevant to what we are talking about: the concept of balance.

Yes, there is a time to study, this is the active energy, the Yang. But in order to achieve balance we need the passive and receptive energy of the Yin as well. You might recognize this:

Most of Western society has an overemphasis on the Yang energy, the masculine, the active, and the topic of drawing is no exception. For the sake of this post, I instead focus on how to channel our underutilized Yin energy, so that we can achieve balance, just like the fumbling toddler.

Here we are, learning how to walk.

Yang	Yin
logic	emotion
think what to do	feel what to do
question	trust
structure	energy
give	receive
push	pull
muscle flexion	muscle relaxation
straight lines	curved lines

The goal is a complete and balanced whole.

Awaken Your Intuition

I’m going to do my best to describe the intuitive process that seems beyond words.

The best way I can describe channeling your intuition is to: Turn your brain off.

If you’ve ever meditated for substantial periods of time, you might know what I’m talking about. You focus on deepening your breath and let your thoughts pass by over you like clouds. You simply be still. You release any fear and accept where you are. Once you find this quiet, timeless, and positive place, you know you are safe to learn. From here is where you channel confidence.

Your intuition is powerful, but it is easily blocked. It can easily be blocked by any negative emotions, worries, and fears, oftentimes our fears about how making mistakes makes us not good enough.

Our brain, or the Ego as it’s often referred to, loves to fixate on things that are wrong. We can focus on the past with sorrow, or focus on the future with anxiety. Meditation allows us to release these fears and be in the here and now where everything is okay. The present moment is where we find ourselves.

We don’t beat ourselves up for not being at a better skill level, the same way we don’t yell at trees for not growing faster.

In this place, we are free to trust in our own power and growth.

From here, you don’t wonder what to do. Self-doubt is a passing thought that cannot get ahold of you. It can’t latch onto you because you’re too busy taking immediate definite action and learning from the results. Again and again, acting and learning.

From this place, I can make marks on the page from a place of confidence and trusting myself. To amplify the confidence, I use permanent drawing tools. The picture comes out better every time when I am acting from this place of confidence, as opposed to from a place of fleeting doubt.

Quiet your mind and channel this unwavering confidence within you. Trust that you already know what to do, then do it. This isn’t a thinking process, but a feeling one.

Empathize

Yin requires relaxation and trust. It shows how things come out better when we don’t force a desired result, but are instead receptive to any result because it brings growth. It allows us to fail fast and to learn more from our mistakes. For more on being okay making mistakes, see Mindset Shifts for Massive Growth.

The Yin of drawing people calls us to focus on the energy and emotion of the person. I’ve noticed that my work comes out better when I ask myself “What it would be like to be the thing I’m drawing?”

These are the questions you ask yourself once you are able to channel your intuition:

• “What would it feel like to be __?”
• “What would it feel like to be… his muscle?” Is it taunt or relaxed?
• “What would it feel like to be… his hair?” Is it fluffy, sleek, thin?
• “What would it feel like to… make this pose?” How would my body counteract gravity? What emotion would I be feeling?

Drawing life is a very empathetic process.

One time during a life drawing session that I had rushed in late to, finding the model already at work, I saw something from the corner of my eye. “Smoke?” I thought to myself. Stunned, seeing a fire forming from the outlet hooked up to the heater and lamp right next to all the plush blankets by the model, I yelled with wide eyes, “Fire! Fire!” Luckily somebody was able to move and put it out. High on adrenaline, the models poses were so expressive after that, as were our drawings!

Develop Mind-Body Awareness

What I consider a big “secret” for my figure drawing improvement, is actually the unrelated fact that I’ve been doing yoga for years. This practice has given me strong mind-body awareness that people without similar practices like yoga or dancing, don’t have.

By mind-body awareness, I mean that I am aware of how I hold my body at all times. I define mind-body awareness as the practice of creating a relationship between my mind and body, always making sure that they are working together. I am aware of how I am holding myself, and how that makes me feel. I am aware of how emotions make my body feel. When I’m stressed, I can feel the tension build in my shoulders and neck. If I’m sad, I can feel my shoulders hunch over. When I am happy and confident, I notice how I stand taller. Even now as I sit at my desk and type this, I feel better when I sit up straight and have better posture. In this way, I am always listening to my body and working with it. My mind and body have a strong feedback loop, each picking up signals from the other, and I use that to become balanced.

My yoga practice has given me is a stronger sense of mind-body-awareness. When I see a model doing a complex pose, I can easily put myself in his or her shoes. I can imagine flexing and relaxing my own muscles in the same way to hold the same pose, and when I visualize doing this, the drawing comes out significantly better.

I find this realization beautiful because exercise is completely unrelated to drawing, but the connection for me has been profound. I used to look at exercise as time that could have been spent working, but now I see and appreciate how it can amplify my work in ways I never could have expected.

Stop lying and exaggerate

Oftentimes artists try to capture what is in front of them exactly, but living in a world with an abundance of camera phones, why do this?

Instead of copying exactly, use what is in front of you as raw material that you can omit or change it as you please. There are no wrong answers here. Your exaggeration will have more personality, more empathy, and will be closer to the truth of the person, than an attempted realistic representation of them ever will.

As you are changing up this beautiful raw material in front of you to suit your desires for your own creation, keep in mind that there are no rules. Except one: That what you are doing makes you happy.

Seeking the Yin & Yang balance in the drawing itself

You can let this yin and yang metaphor carry you even further by asking yourself these questions.

• Is the model in a yin or yang pose?
• Where is gravity acting on the body and the body acting on gravity?
• Which kind of energy does this body part have?
• Would this muscle be relaxed or flexed—yin or yang?
• Is this line curved or straight—yin or yang?
• How can I balance these energies to create unity—a balanced silhouette?

Final Thoughts

I see the polarity of Yin and Yang everywhere, and drawing is no exception. Looking at drawing through this Yin lens has been beautiful. I relate with people better. I focus on how we are similar rather than how we are different. My improved empathy skills and ability to trust my intuition are what have allowed me to grow so much, without the process being painful. The whole journey has actually been a lot of fun.

Before these shifts in thinking, I felt lopsided, only focusing on taking action and criticizing. It was like learning how to walk, but only using one side of my body. It was frustrating and I didn’t get very far. Gravity is brutal to the imbalanced.

Now, after eight months of consistent practice and experimentation, I’ve discovered the other side of my body. I’m much more balanced and whole. Walking isn’t so difficult anymore. I like feeling the world beneath my bare feet.

It’s an entirely different way of thinking—of living really—that even transcends life drawing.