Gesture timer
Timed drawing sessions from your own reference photos, built-in mannequin poses or a list of things to draw from life. Short poses force you to find the movement of a subject before its details.
Why draw in short, timed poses
Gesture drawing is fast drawing of a pose, figure or object, done against the clock. The time limit matters. In thirty seconds you cannot copy contours or detail, so you have to work out what the pose is doing: the line of action through it, the rhythm of its curves, the tilt of head, ribcage and pelvis, and where the weight falls. Frequent short poses train you to see the whole before the parts. Longer drawings built on that foundation stay lively instead of stiff.
- Line of actionThe dominant curve or straight line through the pose. Put it down first, in one stroke, and make it more curved than it looks, not less.
- RhythmContours alternate: a full convex curve on one side of a limb is answered by a flatter or straighter one on the other, and staggered across it. Following that alternation moves the eye through the figure.
- Weight and balanceFind the supporting leg. A plumb line from the pit of the neck falls on or near it. In contrapposto the pelvis tilts one way and the shoulders the other.
- Three massesTreat the head, ribcage and pelvis as simple volumes. Their tilt and twist against each other carry most of the movement.
- EconomyDraw from the shoulder with a soft medium or the side of the lead, on cheap paper such as newsprint. Accept distortion. A short pose records what you saw, not a finished image.
Set up a session
Choose what to draw from, pick a sequence of poses, then press Start. Images you load stay in this browser. Nothing is uploaded, and they are forgotten when you close the page.
Draw from
Reference images
Good sources: your own photos of friends posing, pose-reference sites, or stills from dance and sport. If the session has more poses than images, the images repeat.
Sample figures
A new mannequin pose is generated for every pose in the session: standing, lunging, reaching, crouching, running, throwing and kneeling, each varied at random and sometimes mirrored. Mannequins are simplified, so use them to practise line of action and the three masses, then move to photographs or life.
For drawing from life with no reference images: each pose shows one thing to find in the room (or yourself, in a mirror) and draw. Objects have gesture too: the thrust of a chair leg, the slump of a bag, the curve of a draped cloth.
Session
Poses
Options
Beeps sound at 3, 2 and 1 seconds before a pose ends, and a chime marks each change. The timer keeps time if you switch tabs.
Session log
Every session you finish (or end early) is logged here, in this browser only. Little and often counts more than the odd long session.
| Date | Session | Source | Poses | Drawing time |
|---|