Hands

When I was younger, I liked to draw hands, but it was always my left hand that I drew. This time around, I decided that I wanted to draw someone else’s hands, so that I could draw them together, catching them from a different angle and working in shade and light. I wanted to draw my son’s hands, so I got him to position them together, and then I took a few photos from different angles before I settled on the position that I was happy with.

I think my style of art is leaning towards photo realism, and I’m happy to go with that for the time-being while I practice getting my lines and shading correct. I began with the grid method purely to make sure that the height and angle was in proportion, and then I added the detail afterwards. This is the outline of the hands:

I’m pleased with the initial outline, and I can already see the similarity between my sketch and my son’s hands. The next part of the process is to begin the shading. In my previous drawings, I didn’t particularly have a method of where I would begin the shading; I would usually start at the bottom, but that makes the outer area of the page dirty. When beginning the shading on this sketch, I decided to be more methodical by starting at the top left-hand side of the image:

The darker part of the sketch is the left-hand side due to the light source coming from the top right. When progressing further over towards the right, I had to make sure that the rest of the drawing wasn’t dark. The shape of the second finger, at this stage, needed to be altered slightly as the finger joint is quite large in proportion to the rest of the finger. The next part was also going to be difficult because although the knuckles looked like they were going to be easy to shade, they were quite a challenge to do. I had numerous attempts at the knuckles, and below is the finished image:

I’m quite pleased with the finished drawing, although the knuckles could definitely be improved upon. I’ll definitely draw more hands as I like the way they come in all different shapes, sizes and textures. I think I am improving my shading techniques as my finished sketches aren’t as dark as they used to be.

I’m now beginning my next project, which is a tattoo design for myself, and will go on my left arm. My left arm already has two large tattoos on it, so this final one has to fit in with the design of the other two so that it doesn’t look out of place. The design I’m currently working on incorporates flowers, but also has an extra added piece to it that reflects another passion that I have. All will be revealed soon.