Hand Drawing Number One
This is the first in a new series, twenty drawings of hands.
So far I’m taking a slightly different approach with these hand drawings, compared to the
self-portrait drawings. I’m notdoing any measuring, no grids and no viewfinders. For this
drawing I started with the crook between the thumb and thetop side of the hand, drawing
the negative shape between them first and then following the outline rounduntil the edges
joined again at the end of the thumb.
Initial laying out was done very lightly with a B pencil, then restated more strongly and with
closer observationto the detail with a 3B, followingthe contour of the edge as closely as I
could. I find it much easier to concentrate on that once the overallshape is roughed in. Tonal
shading wasdone with a 6B.
Now it has to be said, I’m not drawing exactly what I see here. It became obvious to me
when Iwas doing the self portrait drawings that drawing is different from painting in terms of
recording what I see asfaithfully as possible, mainly because of the way the edges of objects
are defined in drawing.
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With painting, an edge between one object and another can be described by colour, so the
edge is obvious even whenthe tones are very close. Not so drawing. The only way to show an
edge shared by two similarly toned objects isto draw the line of the edge, even though the
line isn’t really there as it appears in the drawing.It seems to me that drawingis much more a
kind of codifying of reality than a faithful representation. In most cultures that I can think
of,right back to the earliest known cave paintings, edges in drawing have always been
defined by lines, but I suspectthat this works because of convention – we know that when a
drawing contains a line, it can be the edge of anobject or an edge shared by two objects. The
edge of an object doesn’t exist exactly as it’s represented in thedrawing, but because
convention allows us to see a line on paper as the edge of an object, it works in practice.
This reflects a point of view I’ve been coming round to more as this project progresses, that
the foundationof the approach I’m using, to see correctly and to record faithfully what I see,
is basically flawed. That doesn’tmean its useless, it isn’t. Or that I’m going to abandon it, I’m
not. But I’m having to be pragmatic and to back offa little from applying it too strictly.
I guess the approach is changing a little and becoming something more like: seeing the
subject as accuratelyas possible, then finding a way to represent it as convincingly as
possible within the conventions that we areused to using and the limits of the technique and
materials. I can live with that if it gets me where I wantto go.
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Hand Drawing Number Two
This one is a more economical drawing than the last one.
Once I’d done the outline, in the same wayas the last one, I had half a mind to leave it with
no shading at all since it looked kind of completeas it was. When I did put the shading in and
suggested some of the tones, I kept it pretty light becauseI didn’t want to detract from the
line, some of which I like, especially around the top of the hand wherethe index finger is
bent round.
I’ve been thinking more lately about the four elements of light and shadow in drawing: the
cast shadow,the edge shadow, the mid tone and the highlight. It’s a standard way of looking
at drawing form which as faras I’m aware goes back to the Renaissance, maybe before.
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Cast shadow:
A cast shadow is a shadow on one object cast by another. The shadow on the middle finger
under thethumb is a cast shadow, there’s also one cast by the little finger on the palm of the
hand below it.
Edge shadow:
This is a shadow cast on an object because it’s facing away from the light. The area between
the lastjoint of the fingers and the nails is edge shadow, also on the bottom of the thumb
and behind the knuckleof the thumb.
Mid tone:
Well there isn’t too much mid tone in this drawing, but the area around the base of the
thumb iskind of a mid tone. Or an edge shadow, or a bit of both.
Highlight:
This one is pretty obvious, its the, erm, highlights. On this drawing, the mid tone and the
highlightsaren’t really differentiated. If I’d done this on toned paper I would have added a
few highlights inwhite pastel. Later on I’ll do some on toned paper in charcoal and white
chalk, highlights will stand outmore.
Given the fact that the mid tone and highlight are pretty much the same on this drawing,
just whitepaper, I obviously haven’t been thinking about it enough.
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Hand Drawing Number Three
This drawing is a kind of practice of hatching.
Hatching is as old as the hills, and involves describing tone by overlapping lines running in
differentdirections, crossing over each other. The more layers of lines the darker the tone.
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My hatching isn’t allthat neat. On some old master drawings you can see that they expended
a great deal of energy on makingsure the lines all follow the same contour. Done like this,
hatching can be used to show the shape of aform as well as tone.
I guess I need a bit more practice with this because the hatching on this drawing is messy.
Then again it alwayswas, not enough patience. I recently bought a book of old master
portraits, some of the hatching on thosedrawings is really well done. As soon as I get my arse
into gear, I’ll copy a couple to study how theydid it.
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Hand Drawing Number Four
This was actually the second I drew today, the first one ending up in small pieces in the bin.
Ireally must stop doing that.
In order to avoid all these hand drawings being from the same viewpoint, I drew this one in
themirror, with my hand relaxed and my wrist resting on my knee. Something about the
wrist doesn’t quiteconvince me, but overall I’m quite happy with this one.
Although its a fairly simple drawing, I think it has more life than the previous three.
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Hand Drawing Number Five
This one was done in a bit of a rush. The light was fading fast, but the tones and shadows
were nice and Ididn’t want to miss them. Drawings one to three were all done by electric
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light, four and five by natural light.I don’t know what it is about natural light, but I’m much
happier working in daylight than electric light.Tones seem to be more clearly defined, and
easier to capture.
I dislike working quickly, although I know its good for me. Because of that, the proportions
aren’tquite right in this drawing. The ring finger showing behind the two vertical fingers is
too long I think, and thelittle finger looks like it doesn’t quite join with its knuckle. I’m quite
happy with it all the same, its astronger drawing than I often produce in terms of the
heaviness of the line and the tones, it looks moreconfident. It being the third one I did today
may have something to do with that.
Another exercise in hatching, this one is improvement on the last time I used this technique
in the third drawing. Overall the hatching isneater and more controlled, despite being done
much quicker. I’d just been looking at a couple of booksI’ve got of old master figure drawing,
which is perhaps why this one came out in that style. It kindof reminds me of some of
Durer’s drawings.
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Hand Drawing Number Six
This one is a copy of a drawing by Raphael.
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The original is done in ink, so I used only a 6B for this one, hoping to get a similar depth to
theline.
I can’t say its a very close copy of the original, but I don’t mind. Copying an old master
drawinglike this makes you study the original in much more detail than you would when
normally look at a drawing,and helps you to learn something about the approach used,
which I think can be of benefit.
A few things struck me about Raphael’s technique when I was copying this drawing. Firstly,
the outlineof the hand isn’t drawn like I draw my outlines. In my hand drawings, I make sure
that the outline lookspretty much like one continuous line by the time the drawing is
finished. That’s not a conscious thing,they just come out that way. The outline of my hands
isn’t drawn as a continuous line, but when I move to thenext section of the outline, I make
sure the start of the new part of the outline matches up with the endof the part I’ve just
finished, by and large.
In Raphael’s drawing, the outline is made up of a series of discrete lines, you can see the
start and endof each one. On the fingers, each of the three joints of the finger is drawn with
a separate curve, done in onego. I’m thinking back to hand number four and hand number
five while I write this, and actually I think Idid something similar, drawing the curve of the
edge of each joint in a continuous line. But this mainlyhappens in the roughing out stage,
when I’m drawing very lightly. Once I had the overall shape of the handroughed in, I then
went in and restated the outline more heavily, with more attention to detail.
Raphael doesn’t appear to have done any roughing out at all, it looks like he was sure
enough of theposition of each line to draw it once and then to leave it alone. But, you know,
he was one of the greatestdraughtsmen the world has ever known so I don’t feel too bad
about having to rough out my drawings first.
The second thing that struck me was the frequency with which he uses the ‘S’ shaped line to
describe theoutline of each part. I dimly remember this from when I did my art ‘A’ level the
first time round (it took metwo goes to finish mine,) and we covered some art history.
Apparently, if I remember right, the ‘S’ shapedline was considered to be the line of beauty.
Raphael was concerned with producing idealised versions of nature, something the Greeks
were very big on,and so were the Romans after them (since Roman art was heavily
influenced by ancient Greek art). Because theRenaissance, in art at least, was largely
concerned with a revival of the idealised naturalism or realism ofRoman and therefore Greek
art, Renaissance artists and architects used techniques which were supposed toallow then to
create beauty through idealised forms of nature. The golden section is one of these. So isthe
‘line of beauty’ (you can see one on the top right of this drawing). I think Hogarth is the best
knownwriter about the line of beauty, but he borrowed from early Italian writers. Of course I
could be wrong,I’m thinking back twenty years or so. But the fact remains that the majority
of the outline of this drawingis built up of different versions of this line.
What all this means for me (or any one else learning drawing) in practical terms I’m not
entirely sure.I’m certainly not going to start trying to introduce this line deliberately into my
drawings. there’s been alot of water under the bridge since the fifteenth century, and I’m
not trying to produce an idealisedversion of reality. I’d be happy enough to be able to get
anywhere near reality at all at the moment.
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Hand Drawing Number Seven
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Hand Drawing Number Eight
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Hand Drawing Number Nine
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Hand Drawing Number Ten
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Hand Drawing Number Eleven
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Hand Drawing Number Twelve
This drawing never got finished unfortunately. I didn’t date it, so I can’t remember when I
did it, but last monthsometime.The reason it didn’t get finished is that someone came round
when I was only half an hour or so in, and onceI’d moved my hand I never got back to it. I
can see what I was going for though, outline first, then majortone blocks. The next stage
would have been modulating the shadows more.
This is the last drawing I did before I started working on the Bargue drawings. I mention that
because Ithink the Bargue drawings have had such a positive effect on the quality of my line.
The next four hands show animprovement over this on in the quality of line and observation,
I think that’s largely due to the practice withthe Bargue plates.
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Hand Drawing Number Thirteen
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Hand Drawing Number Fourteen
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Hand Drawing Number Fifteen
This drawing, although done from life in a mirror, (it’s my left hand,) is loosely based on the
hand in the Van Dyck copy I did a while back, except that thehand in Van Dyck’s drawing is
resting on a skull. I don’t have a skull, so mine is resting on poor Clytie’s head.It’s an
interesting viewpoint to draw a hand from though, with drastic foreshortening of the arm.
Michellewasn’t too convinced that the drawing of the wrist and arm was right until I sat
down, put my arm into the sameposition and showed her. Actually it is pretty close, I have
thin, bony wrists.
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Hand Drawing Number Sixteen
Have a pear. Excuse fingers.
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Hand Drawing Number Seventeen
Morning coffee.
This, as far as I can remember, is the first hand of this series to be done in charcoal.Lately, I
seem to reach for the charcoal by reflex and don’t use pencil so much. I guessthat’s a sign
that I’m becoming more comfortable with it. Also I think it makes fornicer drawings.
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This drawing was approached like a Bargue drawing, almost all my drawings are now toa
greater or lesser extent. First I put in the centre line on my drawing, then visualiseda centre
line through my hand. After marking in the top and bottom points where the edges ofmy
hand crossed the centre line, I put in acouple of other points within these to get some idea
of the proportion, then fixed thefurthest point to the right. Once this was done, I could see
where the main block shapesneeded to go and worked down in levels of detail from there. I
knew it was time to stopwhen my hand started aching from holding this position.
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Hand Drawing Number Eighteen
After suffering with an aching hand in the last one, I chose a nice relaxed positionfor this
one, resting against my little pot belly (it was drawn in a nearly full-lengthmirror, standing
up). This is one of my favourites of the hand drawings, because I successfullysaw the main
shapes, didn’t get drawn into detail too early.
Although I’m still on my line only diet, that doesn’t mean I can’t show where the tone would
be.I put in the broken line across the knuckles to show the division between the light plane
of theback of the hand and the fingers in shadow. Although it’s not showing tone, it does
infer thatthere’s a change in the direction of the planes there.
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Hand Drawing Number Nineteen
An exercise in foreshortening.
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Hand Drawing Number Twenty
My left hand round the neck of my little teardrop fiddle.
This is the last of the hand drawings, for the current series anyway. Looking back over
thetwenty drawings, I can see a progression. The lines are better in this last batch,and the
forms are better observed. The first of these hands was drawn on January the 12th, it’staken
me over four months to finish the series, or about a hand a week. That doesn’t seem sogreat
to me.
Overall I’m happy though, and I’ve enjoyed this series. I think another series of hands
whenI’m using tone again wouldn’t go amiss.
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