Drawing Hands

Many people have problems drawing hands.  There are no real quick fixes to drawing hands.  Like playing the piano or writing poetry, you just have to practice as much and as often as you can to improve. 

I have noticed that my hand drawings are sometimes good and sometimes abominable.  I just can’t stand it.  So to finally improve overall, I have challenged myself to draw one hand a day from photographs. 

The first thing I noticed is that a good photograph makes all the difference.  You can’t get good core shadows and cast shadows if the lighting in the photograph is directly in front.  When this happens, you get flat lifeless hands no matter what you do.  So I went looking for hands with good shadows and light from above or to the side with one light source.  Having several light sources messes up the shadows and makes for a difficult drawing too.

The second think I have noticed is that the bones in the hand are becoming more like second nature to me.  I’m seeing them better now where before I was struggling to see where the knuckles fell and drawing the fingers like sausages.  They really are more like long thin rectangles with the corners rounded a bit.  Also women’s fingertips tend to be a bit more pointed and rounded while the fingertips on a man are more squared.  

Practice certainly makes a difference.  So far I have made it 20 days in my journey and I plan to continue for 3 months.  I should be a hand expert by June.  I may even continue the experiment for as long as a year.  Who knows?