Hands

We focused completely on the hands this week, starting with a very in-depth lecture on all of the different components of the hand. I'm not sure that it felt easier to draw the hands after already having drawn the feet, but it wasn't as difficult as I expected. With the feet, I found it easiest to map out the four different planes first, and then go back in to add all of the detail of the ankle and toes. With the hands, I found it easiest to figure out all of the angles of each finger, which was basically a series of lines, and then going back in to draw each finger in detail. So my process for drawing the hands was similar to my process for drawing the feet, I just didn't focus so much on the different planes of the hand, but rather the angles. In the end, I found that I had a much easier time drawing hands than feet.

One of the things that we did different this week, was we were able to draw directly from a skeleton hand. I ended up drawing from the skeleton before I drew from the model, and I think it was actually quite beneficial to do it in this order. Since I had a better understanding of the inner structure of the hand, I was able to better understand the different planes of the outer surface of the hand.

I never ended up getting a complete drawing of either the skeleton hand or the model's hand, but I think the partial drawings I have show my understanding of the overall structure.

Amy also had us bring in our clay models this week so she could check our forearm muscles. It seemed like everyone had some difficulty making the muscles thin enough so that the forearm wouldn't look completely disproportionate to the upper arm. Overall, the clay muscle building ended up being much more difficult than I expected. The book is extremely confusing and unless you're someone who has the patience and time to spend  hours upon hours building muscles, they're just never going to look 100% perfect.