Drawing Your Hand- Contour

Drawing Your Hand

Contour

8.5" x 11"

pencil

If you are having trouble drawing your hand, and even if you aren't, this is something that you might try. This will help your focus and your observation.

This is called a Contour drawing.

1. Place your paper on the table in front of you. You can use masking tape on the edges to prevent moving it around.

2. Shake your hand, or relax it, and drop it loosely near your paper-not on top of it. Be sure that you are in a comfortable position so that you can keep your hand still while you finish your drawing.

3. Pick a spot to begin. I started just above my wrist on the top side of my arm.

4. Place your pencil on this spot, then draw a continuous line , slowly, carefully, examining the outline of your hand.

Do Not Trace!

5. As you draw, imagine that your pencil is touching the outside edge only of your subject. That is, your hand. Move your pencil in one continuous line, and try not to lift your pencil.

6. Look at, and draw, every little lump, bump, curve, and dent that you see and continue all around one side of your hand, and end on the opposite side.

7. Do not draw any interior lines.

8. Do not add any textures or shading. This type of drawing only deals with the outside edges.

9. If your pencil or paper slips, you can reposition your pencil. Otherwise, just try to keep going all the way around.

10. If you feel confident, you can try this with a pen or marker.

In my drawing above, you may see a double line in places. I did go over mine again as the pencil was very light. I didn't think it would show up in the scan, so I darkened my line.

Also, my hand was folded over a little so that my thumb is in the interior, so it is not shown.

I used just an ordinary #2 pencil for this drawing, and 20 # copy paper. You may want to use a little better paper, if this is something that you would like to save.

I tried scanning this several times as there are some little dots on the paper that do not show up when I look at the paper. I cleaned the paper with an eraser, and cleaned my scanner glass, but they keep showing on my scans. So, just ignore the little dots. They aren't there for any purpose, but won't seem to go away.

Contour drawings can be used to draw many things. They can be the basis for working with design, or for futher, or more realistic studies. While they show outline and placement, they do not show things like form, texture, light and shadow. They can also be a quick way to put down placement and size of some part of a picture.

They really do make you look at whatever you are drawing.

I hope that you will try this out, as practice. You can try your hand in many different positions.

I firmly believe that everyone can draw. Even those with disabilities can draw although they sometimes have to improvise methods that will work for them.

Too often I hear people, even young people, say, "I can't draw." And, they make themselves belive this. But, what they actually mean is that their drawing is not what they want it to be. Or, they are not able to draw or paint realistically. They cannot see that their own style is of value. Or, even more commonly, they don't understand that it takes practice and study to get where they feel that they should be with their art. It's like anything else whether that is playing a musical instrument, writing, playing a sport, cooking, sewing, gardening, or driving. You have to be willing to learn, and practice, in order to improve or to gain that skill.

We all start out to draw the same ways. It is part of our development. Stick figures, circle eyes, lollipop trees. Some people just give up while others work on their observation skills, and seek to improve through practice and study.

I know that from drawing, I have become much more observant than I would have been if I had not drawn throughout most of my life. But, I didn't start out drawing any better than anyone else. I just stayed with it, was curious, and tried to improve. I'm still trying to learn and improve. We all change, too, as we grow older and change.

Now, I know that you too can draw, so I hope that you will try recording your hand, for my challenge. You can send me, as a jpeg file, your drawings of your hand, both realistic and contour, to include in a slide show.

Even if you think you can't draw, give it a try and see what you can do. This will give you, not only some practice in observation, and drawing, but also something that you can keep. A piece of art work that will show what your hand looks like today. I hope that you will take pride in what you do.

Try to do this by next Wednesday, for my challenge. Hope you have some fun with this, and even surprise yourself!

Happy Drawing!

Let me know if you see something that you are interested in. And thanks for sharing with others. If you haven't joined my group, or subscribed to my blog, I hope that you will consider that. There is a subscription box in the sidebar, and you can click on my group to go there and join that way.

Challenge-Draw Your Hand

My Hand
Realistic
8.5" x 11"
pencil

If you study the work of artists through the ages, you will find that they often did self portraits, or used themselves as models when they needed to see how some part of a person looked.

Even in elementary school art, students can begin doing self portraits by looking in a mirror at home or in class. They can try to remember what they look like, or look across the table and draw each other. They can check in a mirror to make corrections in their self portraits.

You should remember what you look like because you probably spend more time looking at yourself than anyone else. But, do you look and not really see? Or remember? From brushing your teeth, to washing your face, fixing your hair or makeup, checking your clothes in a mirror, you have probably spent hours looking at yourself in a mirror during your life.

Sometimes, when people draw another person, it may look like the artist. Possibly they draw what they know, or what is within them, instead of what they actually see. We translate the strengths, the lines and shapes that we are familiar with, or feel, into our drawings, without realizing it. And, again, it is easy to put down the image that we are so familiar with , the one that we have seen in our mirrors for many years.

One thing that can be done is to draw a picture of your own hand, or your own foot. You have probably looked at those almost as much as you have at your face! Before we did portraits, I had students start with studies of their hands and their feet.

I hope that you will try this yourself! The more we practice seeing, and drawing, the more observant we become, which helps all sorts of things in our lives. So, try this challenge, and, if you come out with something interesting, scan it, or take a photo, and send it along to me. I'll make a slideshow out of them and add them to the blog. Might be a fun thing to do! I need to do a new drawing, too.

This is what you do:

1. Put a piece of paper on your work space. You can tape it down, if that will help to keep it straight.

2. Shake your "opposite hand" (the one that you don't write with!), and drop it loosely, in a relaxed position on the table in front of you, and near, but not on, the paper. You will need to keep your hand in that position until you are finished, so be sure that you are comfortable.

3. Don't trace!

4. Study your hand, then find a place to start drawing. It could be on the tip of the fingers or the thumb, at your wrist, or wherever you want to focus first.

5. Draw the outside edges first until you have drawn the outline.

6. Add details such as creases, wrinkles, and fingermails.

7. Look for the darkest areas and add shadows. Try to blend in the direction that things go such as up and over, down and around, to show form.

8. Use a tortillion or stump, or a piece of tissue to rub or smooth your shading. Some people blend with their fingers, but most people agree that this could add an oily spot from the natural oils in your skin.

In shading, some people like to use hatching or cross hatching, (diagnoal and crossed marks). To me, that is okay for a hurried sketch, but, in order to show the texture of skin, my preference is for smooth blending. I like the hatching effect for rough textures, like window screens, but not for things that are actually smooth. Unless it is used like shorthand, an indication of more work to be done later.

9. Go back and darken any areas that need to be darker.

10. To add highlights, use an eraser to remove any pencil work on that spot.

One thing to remember is to look, not only for the light source, and where the light falls or doesn't fall, but also that light appears to come forward and dark seems to recede, or go back. So, if you want something to look like it is coming forward, or closer to you, you can lighten that area. Or, if you want it to appear to go back, away from you, you can darken that area and it will appear a bit more distant.

This challenge is to do a more realistic style hand, but I have other ways to do more studies of the hand.

Not only will this work on observation of something that is very close to you-your own hand, and make you a bit more observant, but you will have a nice drawing of what your hand looks like, at this stage of your life. And a nice piece of art, as well. It's really good to do these things, and self portraits, at different stages of life. Hands are interesting, as well as faces.

You may have had older relatives who, when you were a child, would place their hands beside your's and say, "I remember when my hands were smooth like that." It would be very hard to understand that as you looked at your own smooth hand and their wrinkled, gnarled hands.

One thing I remember about my mother is her little finger as she played the organ, and then the rest of her hand. As she died, I held that little finger. It was the only warm thing left on her body.

We think of taking pictures, or having portraits of the face and the whole figure, but we don't often think of the hands of the people in our lives. We remember them working, their touch, their gestures, how they used their hands when they played, laughed, sneezed, talked, and all the things that people do in life. But we don't often think of recording those things that are so familiar in life.

At a workshop for art teachers, we were doing drawings of our hands, and I was so thrilled when they picked my drawing to go on a publication for the Regional Education Service Center! I don't think that I am that good at realism, so I was very surprised.

Anyway, when you finish, scan and send it to me at my contact address, if you would like to participate. I know that people are busy, especially at this time of year, but, perhaps, if I allow a week to do the drawing, you will be able to work it in by then.

Try to send your drawing in by next Wednesday. I'm anxious to see what you can do, and what you might like to share.

I do have more drawings, and more recent drawings of my hand, (and other things) but I happened to find this one in a stack of things I wanted to scan. I thought that teachers who might need a drawing assignment might be able to use this .

Happy drawing!

Let me know if you see something that you would be interested in purchasing. Thanks for reading and for sharing.