Huston lec. 3

Stretch is the gesture - pinch is the structure.

Every pinch leads to a stretch, then a pinch, then a stretch, etc - all the way to the end of the body. Series of S curves.

An S curve can be thought of a just a series of stretches and pinches.

Across from every stretch is a pinch, and vise verse.

Because we're watery creatures who must stand stable but be ready for action. For a body to stand stable it must oppose stretches and pinches dynamically or it will fall over.

When you want explosive action (jumping, running, punching) you compress all the opposed pinches down like a spring - potential energy.

Quadrupeds can't straighten their back legs all the way, they're like coiled springs all the time - that's where their movement comes from. The front legs are much straighter - they get stability there, movement from back legs.

Curves and corners (stretch and pinch). Every curve leads to a corner, every corner begins a curve.

Corners are structural, curves are gestural.

Every twist is anS curve, but every S curve is not a twist.

An S curve is just 2 opposing stretches (gesture).

Contrapposto - S curve, or a series of stretches. The stretches are the lines you draw (gesture lines)  - the pinches are the places where the lines meet - the corners.

TheS Curve is a wave action - the most pleasant type of movement. This is why you see it in the composition of so many paintings. It's very human.

When drawing, it's gesture (stretch), then structure (pinch) - gesture then structure, on and on down the line. So you're alternating between gesture (movement) and structure. You need to make sure you build the structures properly each time before starting the next gesture line.

In every artform it's the gesture that's the most fundamentally important. Not the character but the character arc, not the notes but the timing between the notes. It's the relationships between things, not the things.

Rhythms.

Draw the rhythm line (gesture line - the stretch), then work out the structure if it's complicated - if it's simple you don't need structure. The most difficult connection is the head to the ribcage, so you need to spend some time working out the structures of the neck before moving on to that next gesture line.

If the pose has a lot of perspective (foreshortening) then you need more structure, or it will just look like a short person.

A gesture line looks right if it's in about the right place and about the right direction and has a nice dynamic curve to it.

The neck can either group with the stretch of the spine or with the stretch of the face, depending on how it's bent.

Must build structure at neck, shoulders and hips in order to find where to start the next gesture.

Easier to find proportions on the pinch side.

Small head is ok, or of each part gets consistently bigger than the last, that's ok, and of course it's best if the proportions are correct. But big hear or consistently smaller parts is not cool.