Pose Timer — Gesture Drawing Practice

Gesture, croquis and timed figure practice

Croquis — from the French for “sketch” — is the practice of drawing a figure quickly from life or reference, usually in under five minutes. It overlaps almost entirely with what English-speaking artists call gesture drawing: the goal is not an accurate likeness but the pose's energy, weight and line of action. Fashion illustrators use the same word for the simplified figure template they draw garments over.

A timer is what makes the practice work. Without one you drift into rendering, and rendering is the opposite of what gesture training builds. The constraint forces you to decide what matters in the first ten seconds and commit to it — which is the actual skill.

A session structure that works well: five poses at 30 seconds to warm up, ten at 1 minute, then four or five at 2–5 minutes while your eye is switched on. Thirty minutes, three times a week, will move your figure drawing further than one long session at the weekend. For anatomy practice specifically, slow down — 2 to 5 minutes per pose — and work from the same pose repeatedly rather than shuffling.

This timer runs entirely in your browser with your own reference images, so you are not limited to someone else's photo set, and nothing is uploaded. If you do not have references to hand, we host 63 free ones — see the pose reference library, where any set loads straight into this timer. If you want to know more about the underlying practice, see our guide to gesture drawing.

How to use the Pose Timer

1. Upload your reference images using the sidebar. You can select multiple files at once.
2. Choose a timer duration — from quick 10-second gestures to 5-minute studies.
3. Press Start. The first image will appear and the countdown will begin.
4. When the timer expires, the next image loads automatically.
5. Use Fullscreen for a distraction-free practice environment.