When I paint or work with glass, I begin with simple line drawings, known as gesture drawings. These are continuous, fast line drawings, pen never leaving the paper. Whether it is a thought, an expression, a memory or a live study, it is important to express a sense of movement and rhythm. An example of the quick gestures or scribbles, if you like, are the initial drawings that I made of bikers on the bike path in Lincoln Park.They were the initial studies for a new series of paintings that I started over a year ago, called At Play in the City. I am back at work on the series.
The concept of gesture drawing and its importance to creating a piece of art, is best described by Kimon Nicolaides in his book, The Natural Way to Draw. He writes: “You should draw, not what the thing looks like, not even what it is, but what it is doing. Feel how the figure lifts or droops, pushes forward here, pulls back there, pushes out here and drops down easily there.”
