This post is following on from my recent blog post about the benefits of regular life drawing. I’m aware that it’s not always easy or practical getting along to a life drawing class. However one simple thing that most of us can do is have a go at drawing hands.
My “warming up” exercises vary from quick self portraits to copying John Singer Sargent portraits. On occasion though I will do a quick study of my left hand which is what you can see here.
Here’s a couple of short time lapse videos of some pen and ink drawings that I did recently in my Moleskine sketchbook using a Shaeffer Fountain pen containing sepia ink.
If you want to add further interest to your drawing, use an angle poise lamp to create shadows from your fingers which will add depth to your study.
To get greater variation to the positioning of the hand then you will need to use a mirror to draw the reflection of the hand.
You can see an example of my hand drawn from being reflected
in a mirror at the end of this video.
If you are drawing hands on a regular basis you will start to see an improvement in your drawing generally. The important thing is to keep practising and not give up.
As Michelangelo once said “Work hard and don’t on any account neglect your drawing’.
