Free Gesture Drawing Timer

A gesture drawing timer is a tool that shows reference images one at a time for a set number of seconds, so each pose must be drawn before the next replaces it. The short limit leaves room only for a pose's line of action, weight and rhythm, the skill gesture practice trains.

1. 1

   Pick your reference source: Master figures (public-domain figure studies and sculpture from three museums), the built-in shaded form studies, or your own images: a whole folder or single files, never uploaded.

2. 2

   Choose a session type: a fixed interval per pose, or class mode with a warm-up-to-long-pose sequence.

3. 3

   Set the pose length, number of poses and optional breaks: the total session time is shown before you start.

4. 4

   Turn on shuffle, grayscale, flip or blur reveal if you want them, then press Start session.

5. 5

   Draw. Space pauses, the right arrow skips, the left arrow goes back a pose. Where the browser supports it, the screen stays awake.

6. 6

   At the end, review the summary grid of what you drew: the pose count and drawing time are saved to your local practice history.

• Beginners

  Beginners can start with 45-second poses of the eight Form studies before moving on to their own figure photos.

• Art students

  Art students can rehearse a life-drawing class with Classic class: ten 30-second gestures building to one 10-minute pose.

• Illustrators

  Illustrators can run Quick warm-up, twelve poses in eight minutes of drawing, before a day of client work.

• Art teachers

  Art teachers can project the Form studies fullscreen and share one link that carries the session settings.

1. Start every pose with the line of action, one curve for the whole figure, before adding anything else.

2. Stand up for 30-second poses if you can; drawing from the shoulder keeps lines loose where the wrist tightens.

3. Use blur reveal for a week if your gestures look stiff. It forces big shapes first.

4. Grayscale plus a two-value limit (paper and one marker) turns any session into notan practice.

5. Don't rewind a finished pose to fix it; the next pose is the fix. The skip button is for genuine emergencies only.

6. End on a pose you're proud of and stop: quitting on a win makes tomorrow's session easier to start.

7. Before a timed pose, find the gesture. The Line of Action Finder draws the line of action over a figure reference, with shoulder and hip tilts.

The Gesture Timer is a program your browser downloads and runs by itself. When you choose a picture, the browser reads it from your files and does the work on your own phone or computer; no copy is sent to this site or to anyone else, and what you export is saved straight from the browser. That is why there is nothing to upload and nothing to sign up for. The privacy page says what the site does collect.