I think the basic issue you're running into here is that IRL the "come here" wave is quick but so far, anyway, all of the devices used to describe it are not. For instance...
He turned his hand, clenched his fingers toward his palm, and pointed his thumb skyward.
...is a great way of describing a thumbs-up if this gesture is, for instance, foreign to the character narrating the scene. If he's not, it rings of trying a little too hard.
My ways of accomplishing this:
Keep it short and to the point. "She beckoned for me." "He gave me a thumbs-up." People already know what these mean in our culture, and if someone not native the culture is reading this, well, they'll feel that much more immersed in the story because you took it for granted that they know these things.
Imply it. If your character says "Good job, Jim!", you probably don't need to indicate that she also gave Jim a thumbs-up unless you want to highlight something about the thumbs-up (for instance, if it's kind of dorky and quaint and you want that to be related to the thumbs-up-giver, or if she has a large and particularly ugly thumb that Jim can't stop staring at). Or, they can just say "Jim, for the love of Mike, come here! Here! Where I am standing1" Can't you kind of see the hand gestures the person is giving there, even without elucidating them?
That being said, if you're running this through on your first draft and you're not sure whether or not to include the gesture, err on the side of overwriting. You can always edit on the second go (and the third, and the fourth, and so on).