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.

Acrylics : The Basics

While somewhat new to the painters world, acylics are becoming more and more popular due to their flexibility suitable for a wide range of techniques. Giving this medium huge potential. They are also much cheeper to work with then your standard oil paints. Good for the begining painter.

In Useing acrylics straight out of the bottle without adding water it is called opaque, it is ideal for even flat coverage, or for very thick effects. Usually you get highly visible brush strokes when using opaque acrylics. Interesting paintings can be built up quickly due to the fast dry time. Mistakes are easily covered due to fast dry times.

Acrylics are largely water based. Meaning there are no toxins to go along with them as in your oil painting. One down side of acrylics is that they dry soft, meaning they can attracked dirt. Some people call this a film. It dulls the colors of your painting. Most art store acrylics do not have this problem.

Different Ways To Use Acrylics:

Opauely: Useing acrylics straight out of the tube. Applied thickly, sometimes adding white. This is important when painting on a toned surface.

Plastic Properties: When it dries, these paints take on a tougher quality of plastic. This makes it unique among painting media because it can be extruded, knotted, or sculpted in 3-D form.

Acrylics As Glue: Its almost like a fast drying glue. Because of this, it works well in colloge techniques. Using lite materials and thick amounts of paint.

Watered Down: Diluted, it can be used like watercolour. It has the advantage of drying insolubly so that layersof paint dont mix with lower layers. Diluted, they also work well in an airbrush.

Painting With Texture: You can create highly textured effects with thick, impasted paint by mixing special pastes into your paint. One coarse paste includes pumice.

Painting With Gel: Gel medium offers you a choice of effects. Alot of gel w/ little paintcreates a translucent impasto. Scraped or painted thinly gels will create a translucent glaze.

MEDIUMS are substances that can be added to paint to change its consistency for specials effects as explained above or even to make it have a glossy or more matte finish. RETARDER can be added to actually slow the paints drying time and keep it workable and useful for techniques like blending.

The best colours to use are those that can withstand fading. Good choices include; Quinacridone violets and reds; Phthalo blues and greens; Cadmium reds and yellows; also Azo yellows are good. The earth colours, Ochres and Siennas, and Titanium White.