Short Poses vs Long Poses in Figure Drawing
One of the most common questions I hear from students is whether they should practice short poses or long poses.
The honest answer is both.
Short poses and long poses train very different skills. Understanding what each one gives you can help you structure your practice sessions more intentionally and get more out of your drawing time.
Instead of thinking of them as separate approaches, it helps to see them as complementary parts of the same process.
What Short Poses Teach You
Short poses usually range from 30 seconds to about two minutes. These are not about making pretty drawings. They are about learning to see.
When I work with short poses, my goal is to capture:
• Overall action of the pose
• Balance and weight
• Line of action
• Relationship between major masses
There is no time for detail. That is intentional.
Short poses force you to simplify. They train your eye to look for the big picture first and help you develop a sense of gesture and flow. You learn to recognize where the energy of the pose lives and how the body is organized in space.
This is where you start building instincts for movement and balance.
Short poses also teach you to let go. You cannot overthink when you only have a minute. You make decisions quickly, commit to lines, and move on. That repetition builds confidence and visual memory over time.
If your drawings feel stiff or overly detailed, more short pose practice is often the solution.
If gesture drawing feels challenging, I dive deeper into this idea in Gesture First: Seeing the Figure Before Anatomy.
What Long Poses Teach You
Long poses usually last anywhere from ten minutes to an hour or more.
This is where structure comes in.
With longer poses, you have time to:
• Check proportions
• Build volume and form
• Refine contours
• Study anatomy relationships
• Explore light and shadow
Long poses allow you to slow down and analyze. You can step back, compare shapes, and make adjustments. This is where you practice accuracy and deepen your understanding of how the body is constructed.
Long poses also teach patience.
They encourage you to work from big to small, starting with simple volumes before moving into detail. You begin to see how forms overlap and how weight travels through the figure.
If short poses train your instincts, long poses train your precision.
Why You Need Both
Short poses teach you how to see.
Long poses teach you how to build.
Without short poses, long drawings often become stiff and overly cautious. Without long poses, short drawings can remain loose without ever developing structure.
Together, they reinforce each other.
I usually think of short poses as warming up my eyes and long poses as strengthening my understanding of form.
A typical session might start with several quick gestures to establish rhythm and flow, followed by one or two longer poses to explore structure and volume more deeply.
This approach keeps both sides of the process active.
I explain how I combine both short and long poses in my own sessions in How I Approach Figure Drawing Practice.
How I Structure a Practice Session
Everyone works differently, but here is a simple structure that works well for many artists:
Start with five to ten short poses to loosen up and find the gesture.
Then move into one or two longer poses where you focus on proportion, volume, and relationships between forms.
During long poses, I try to keep reminding myself of the gesture from the earlier drawings. Even when refining details, I want the original movement of the pose to stay present.
The goal is not perfection. The goal is observation and learning.
Practice Over Finished Drawings
Most of my figure drawings are studies.
They are not meant to be polished or presentable. They are meant to answer questions.
Where is the weight resting?
How do these forms relate in space?
Can I simplify this shape further?
Some drawings are messy. Some are incomplete. That is part of the process.
The real value comes from repetition and observation, not from any single drawing.
Many of these drawing principles directly carry over into clay. I talk more about that in Figure Drawing as a Foundation for Sculpting.
Final Thoughts
Short poses build gesture and awareness. Long poses build structure and understanding.
Both are essential.
If you feel stuck in your figure drawing, try adjusting the balance between the two. More short poses can loosen things up. More long poses can strengthen construction.
Over time, you will start to feel how they support each other.
And that is when drawing becomes less about copying what you see and more about understanding form.