“Hands can convey so much. They can beg or refuse, take or give, be open or clenched, show content or anxiety. They can be young or old, beautiful or deformed.”
-Henry Moore
When drawing the figure, one of the areas that I hear the most frustration with is drawing hands. This makes total sense when we consider how versatile and dynamic the hand can be. Consider a waving hand, or a finger pointing directly at you, or a two hands clasped in prayer. Our hands are second only to our faces in terms of conveying emotion and expressing ourselves.
In this video excerpt from my Drawing the Figure course, I draw the hand in different multiple times with varying approaches to consider each angle and position. During the course of the video I share some notes that I consider when drawing hands such as:
Simplifying the hand into initial shape concepts, such as an ellipse (open hand position) or a box/wedge (closed fist position)
The importance of rendering the proportional size of the hand in relation to the head and how that can help to show the position of the hand in space, whether it’s closer or further away from the body, or the viewer
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Jun-Pierre Art Notes to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
