Drawing: Hands; Tips to Drawing Them

Hands are one of the three expressive body parts that are key in depicting a subjects mood. In other words you should spend almost as much time drawing a persons hands as you do on there face. Don't hesitate to draw them, most beginning artists tend to hide them in pockets or behind things. It takes study, a good eye, and practice, but you can learn to construct a fairly convincing hand if you understand there basic form and underlining anatomy. Understanding the components of the hand; bones, muscles, and tendons, will also help you to draw believable hands.

If you find it hard to draw human hands, don't despair. Not many people find it easy. They always seem to come out looking cartoonish or misproportioned, usually both. Like everything else, it helps to first break them down into simple shapes, again whatever shapes suit you best. Fingers can be broken down into rectangular sections, palms into squares, and so on. Some people prefer other methods, such as simple line drawings to start. I like to think of the hand as three big pieces- the palm, the thumb, and the fingers. Imagining the hand as a mitten, with the fingers grouped as one. Then in your mind convert the mitten into a more 3-D form. The hand is long and generally flat, only the folds of the palm and joints of the fingers make it seem so complex. The fingers have three joints, the knuckles, the middle and the tip.

Here are a few tips to always remember when you are drawing the human hand:

There is a space between fingers. There should be a kind of webbing or 'U' like shape between them.

All hands have three meaty parts. The row or as I call it 'pad' below the knuckles, one right below the thumb and the third is right across from it. Think about which one of these will take up space in any particular hand pose.

Always remember that fingers do not relax into straight lines. They will always have a curve to them no matter how gravity is pulling.

Not every bit of each finger will or should show.The trick is to use your eyes and figure out which fingers stick out and which are covered by part of the hand and other fingers.

And another common misconception, your knuckles do not line up. When you clench your hand together your fingers wrap around the meatier parts. This will make the index and middle finger stick out further then the other two.

Drawing: The 5 Basic Shapes

Want to learn how to draw but don't know where to start. Well let me show you how to draw almost anything with just five simple shapes. You can learn to draw almost anything you want to and continue to carry an increasing enjoyment for it. Almost everything you see around you, a house, a face, a glass, a boat, mountain, tree and so on can be drawn with these following five simple shapes. All you need is a square, circle, triangle, rectangle, and an oval.

Now when you begin drawing you can use any of the shapes that you desire. You may choose to draw something simple like a flower, some people may choose to start with an oval, and others a circle. It doesn't matter what you choose there is no right or wrong. It is what ever feels good to you. Now practice these shapes. Allowing yourself only a few seconds to lightly sketch each one. Do them many times each time a different size and a different proportion. As they say, practice makes perfect. Now don't worry if they are not exact. These are only going to be used as your basic guidelines. Concentrate only on doing them quickly and lightly. Maybe you have to go over them a few times before they look right to you.

Now for drawing more complex objects. Take a picture of whatever it is you want to draw and break it down into your basic shapes. Draw them lightly to achieve the general outline of your subject. Above you can see how I worked through a rabbit and a chicken, starting with the basic shapes of just some circles and triangles. Notice how all the sketches are less then perfect. That is because these are your practice sketches. They will get better with time. These basic shapes will show you instantly if you have the correct proportions. You will find that if you are not satisfied it is very simple to adjust the size of the basic shapes to your satisfaction.

Many beginners often try to draw a portion of the whole object and find that as they continue adding parts they have incorrect proportions and the object does not look correct. They quickly become aggravated having spent so much time on minute details only to find that it looks funny, or they don't have enough room to finish the drawing. That's why starting with simple shapes is so important for even the more advanced artists. Also by putting down these basic shapes you become enthusiastic as you see your simple drawling slowly coming to life.

Try setting yourself a time limit, maybe 15 minutes to start, you will be amazed to see how working under pressure will improve your ability. It will force you to avoid worrying about stray lines and trying to make it perfect. Instead your brain will pick out the instinctive basic lines that will produce the main shape.

Practicing these exercises continually will help you to draw and see things in a way you never have before. You will begin seeing more and more things as simple shapes instead of the complex combinations of lines and colors you were seeing before. Start looking around the room, picking out objects and deciding what simple shapes make it up. By doing this your starting a process that will teach you how to use your eye to draw. Observation is the key. The more you practice the more your brain will remember making it easier for you to draw in the future.

Illustration & Drawing: Perception

One great thing about drawing is that there is no studio or expensive materials needed. Just a pad of paper, a pencil, and your eye for detail. There is really no right tools and only one true requirement, to see.

In drawing it is important to be aware of how we use our eyes in the condustion of our everyday lives. To discover what adjustments we have to make to our perceptual processes to make successfull representational drawings. Now for your first excersise; go to your dinning room table, memorize it, every detail. Now go into a different room and write down a description of everything you saw. You may find it fairly simple. Now return to the room and again write another description. Your second, you shall find is much more ellaboate and finely detailed. Telling stories about individual objects and so forth.

The reson for this is simple, to force you to use your eyes. You first had to use your memory and may have been surprised to see how much you forgot. Then in using your eyes you gathered more info then your memory could hold.

A problem arises when you now try to translate this picture of observation into a drawing. Now draw the table as you saw it. You may find that you come up with something that doesnt really resemble what you know you see. try not to draw it as you wrote it (showing every object as it is indavidually) but as you see it. Make sure you remmeber that your eyes are everything. Most begginers find it hard to draw a table from where they are viewing it. Remember that you need to draw it as you actually saw it. You cant see all of each object. Now take a chair and sit about 9 feet from the table and draw it again. Remembering to use your eyes. Drawing what you see and not what you know is there. You now see how some objects are actually hidden by other objects. You now see how the chair is in front of the table so you cant see all of the table. You may still have the urge to tilt the table top so that you can see everything. Notice that this is not how it is visalbe. Try also to refrain yourself from drawing objects indavidually as a whole. One thing at a time, placing the table and chairs around them.

Remember there is nothing wrong with your eyes or the visual information that you are recieving. The problem is that you are not using the information in a pictoial way. It is not until begginers actually start to make a representational drawing of what he or she sees from a fixed viewpoint that it finally occurs that is is impossible to see an object in its entirety from a that viewpoint. For one, if you were now to move the chair you are sitting in one foot to the right you will now notice from that "fixed viewpoint" all the spaces and viewable areas of the objects in front of you have changed. From point one you may have been able to see a flower vase and now that you have moved to point two you may be able to see the cup that was sitting behind the vase, not visible from point one. You will always be fighting against your precieved experience of an object as distinct from your actual view of an abject when you start to draw.

We recieve way to much information through our eyes. Therefore we have to be selective when drawing, using only the visual information that can be recorded through a fixed viewpoint to draw. Selecting only the most useful things to develope our pictorial representation. Its not about seeing better, but seeing more selectively. Do not expect to be able to comprehend all of the asspects of drawing at once from the beggining. I will further outline several theories associated with representational drawing such as perspective, light, shade, tone, and so on. Try to avoid learning the steps in isolation. Work on your perspective, but make sure to use subject matter that is familiar to you, like your house, or your table. Something you have basic knowledge of. Also it is always better to draw directly from life. Try avoid using photographs and drawings because here the 3 dimensional world has already been changed to a 2 dimentional project. Our main purpose is to train you how to transfer the 3-D world you see to a 2-D flat form. Leave the photograph drawing till later, after you have practiced drawing from life. Practice makes perfect and first hand expierience is the finest teacher. Theories are useful-if kept in their place. You already posses all the tools to draw.