How to Draw Figures Simply (Jinbutsu ryakugashiki)
A Japanese woodblock instruction manual published in Edo in 1795 by Kitao Masayoshi, a ukiyo-e painter, for students learning to sketch people quickly. Its pages are spreads of small, loosely arranged figures in ink outline with touches of red and brown, many captured mid-motion. A designer might take from them a economical approach to gesture, showing how a few confident strokes can convey posture, weight and action.
