How to Draw: The Bean (Patreon)

Toe Beans? Mr Bean? Baked Beans?

What on earth am I talking about beans for?

Well, let me explain!

The bean is a very simple, fast, efficient shape we can lay down early in our gesture drawing to suggest the volume of the torso, the core of our body.

A lot is happening in the torso. The torso is where the story is generated. It tells us if there is a twist, lean, bend, fold, arch, squash and stretch, etc.

It also holds A LOT of anatomy detail. The traps, pecs, breasts, scaps, lats, abs, obliques, belly button, arm joints, leg joints, etc.

Using the bean, sets up a very simple foundation at the beginning of our gesture. If we run out of time, a handful of basic lines representing the bean and the centreline is telling enough of the story. With more time, we can return to add more detail to the bean and have a guide that is already set up to help us.

Check out the video to find out more and see if adding the bean to your gestures helps you organise your anatomy more easily.

Beans are good for gestures and good for your diet!

Have you used the bean in your gestures before? What do you think of it?

- GG

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I found this wonderful little ditty about Beans by Quilla. They know the importance of beans.