The duck was easier, it was closer, it didn't move as much and I am used to draw birds, but the foxes were more difficult for me, so I tried first stoping the video just to have an idea of which were their main features, then, I  played the video several times and and tried to concentrate in only one of them to gasp its gestures.

Regarding gesture drawing a live or moving animal: if I keep at it, I will catch a moment or an angle of head or wing or tail that is distinctly that animal’s movement. That is satisfying...looking back and seeing what the animal is up to.

Gesture drawing was very helpful in the field.  It took some time to begin to see the angles of the wings, to figure out the movements, what they did to take off and to land, but the more I practiced the easier I could see.  I was pleased with the fore-shortening when the Gull flew toward me.  My best experience was when I parked and just sat there and focused on the birds for an hour.  I needed lots of the birds so I could start and stop until I saw a repeated patterns.  I picked gulls because I have a problem identifying species. I noticed that flying posture can be totally different between species.  I also could identify classes of species very quickly from a distance.  I felt it was almost easier to be at a distance to capture gesture because if I could see detail I would slow down and try to record the detail over the gesture.

Of course gesture drawing causes me to pay more attention! I think that I chose an unfortunate subject to try in the field: dragonflies. I thought birds could move quickly, but they are slow-pokes compared to dragonflies. Dragonflies were fun to  watch, but they also made me dizzy since they moved so fast. The birds at my feeder were a little better to observe.

Catching an entire bird before it moves on is a challenge, but it is fun to try.

Challenging; fun to try to capture their movements. I think it will help put more life and character of each animal in our drawings. Thanks for posting these fun videos

Gesture drawing did help me observing the birds -- Yet, they were too fast to be sketched. I kept my camera and phone away (cause I have this tendency of photographing and videoing the birds to be able to sketch them later) I forced myself to just sketch with my pen or pencil. I thought of sketching the shapes only - then I went deeper to observe each part of their anatomy. Their heads, their legs, their "closed" wings and "opened wings. I also was able to focus on their gestures while drinking water, specifically speaking, how their bodies' bend and how it rise while drinking. I've didn't give it much of thought before. Luckily, I noticed a Dove in her nest above my head. There were lots of branches between us , but I tried to get her eye while looking at me :) I have noticed the uniqueness of the house sparrows's black marks on its wings -- both males and females. I've never noticed / or better said / never thought of it until I was sketching their closed wings while standing. Real-life sketching was a bit hard because they were flying away at the minimal movements. Also, they were far away and small in size, I believe this made me sketch tinny sketches :/ It just occurred to my mind that I tend to pick tinny small creatures to sketch.. I'll look for a much larger bird next!

Hi, I tried to write on my last photo with picture and made a mistake; submitted without writing something. I sent a gesture drawing I did of a webcam online as there wasn't much activity when I was outside at my feeders. this i found that I was more focused than the pin-tail Duck moving around on the screen. I am feeling more relaxed and will continue to practice outside. The drawing I did was at the Cornell's Webcam that was recorded last week with a lot of activity even a Baltimore Oriole eating an orange. This is fun!!!  

I've done gesture drawing with a live model in a pose, but trying to capture a moving animal is really challenging!!

This was definitely a hard exercise/lesson to do for me. I was very stressed with the one minute & 30 second time limits that I just had to step away from drawing for a couple of days. I am not comfortable with the being messy/loose technique. The two minutes limit & just sitting & doing the gesture drawings at the feeders were more comfortable and relaxed for me. I do feel & think that gesture/behavior drawing has helped me focus on more specific things during my observations. I have noticed specific movements & patterns/rhythms the animals do. While this wasn’t my most comfortable task, learning to be gentle with the results & learning how to master this skill is definitely important. I will be incorporating a daily gesture drawing in my journaling observations & experiences. Like all skills to master, it takes practice, practice, practice.

Gesture drawings are helping me observe with purpose and I am seeing geometric shapes in all my subjects, because it allows me to focus on my sketch thinking about proportion to the whole. By reducing the whole to parts and doing a quick outline I can capture movement and detail in a shorter amount of time.

It is definitely different from a still subject which I knew that about the birds in taking photos of them. The photo you plan is completely different pose by the time you snap. I observed an interesting move by a bluejay this morn on the top tier of my feeder. He appeared to be jumping up and down. I had never seen one do that before. I think my feeder station is going to be a great practice for gesture in real time if I can just put my camera down long enough. It has never occurred to me before to pick up my sketch book and try to sketch what I see at the feeder. I plan to really work on it. Thanks for a good lesson.

It is very difficult at the moment to do a gesture drawing. they move very fast. I do not get which point I need to start drawing when they move fast.

On the last few exercises, I am finding I need to keep my images smaller, quicker and not to spend too much time on any detail. The red fox with kit was hard-I think mammals seem to have more moving parts than birds. Yet the duck preening had a lot of action. Since it's a cold day outside and I had limited time, I turned on the Cornell Lab bird cam to do a little more practice on a live scene. That was fun - still hard but in the comfort of my home!

I happened to catch a period when the feeder was very busy, the twenty or so birds seeming frantic to feed themselves, each other and those in the nest. They were rarely in one position for more than a second. Though I do see repetitive gestures at other times, today they seemed rare. I found it tiring today. Trying it on the Caspian terns (below) the other day was marginal better as the number of subjects were fewer, but they never stop moving. In both cases, I was discovering things and my eye for details was improving.

I practice sketching the birds that perch in front of my house and at the bird feeder in my garden. A new one is coming: yellow-bellied elaenia (friends help me with the ID). Sketching is a tool that helps me making observations, it is easier to rembember later the shape of the bird and its behavior.   You can make later a finished drawing with all the new information.

This exercise was very valuable for me - so many helpful tips and reminders. Need to practice, practice, practice . . . I was really glad to hear Liz say, “And sometimes when I’m out in the field I pick my favorite drawing to refine, and I add more detail later.”  I often sketch birds, who are almost always moving at least a little. Somehow I had the impression that Nature Journaling meant that every drawing had to be completed in the field, and that it was sort of ‘cheating’ to refine them later! Below are a page from this course exercise and a sketchbook page from last fall.

It was insightful to realise small bits of details that maybe would be captured in slow-paced sketches, maybe not: the angle of the tail or the arched back of the fox; the elongated hands and arms of the frog; the bulkiness of the elk. And although with the video gesture drawings sometimes I was frustrated from having to abandon the just-begun sketches with new poses, it was actually quite fun to capture those basic characteristics