Nick’s 100 Day Challenge Hands & Figure

[nick.lagrow]

Hey all!

I really enjoyed working on figure in my first 100 day challenge (https://www.nma.art/forums/topic/nicks-100-day-figure-drawing-challenge/) – and I got some great feedback!

Next up I want to keep practicing foundational skills for figure drawing – perspective, gesture, proportion, etc. This time around I’ll focus on hands, which look like they’ll be good practice for all of the above 🙂 I’ll alternate between hand studies and full figure drawings, to keep up the practice of the last 100 days.

• 15 mins min
• Will stick to charcoal pencil still
• Alternate figure drawing & hand studies
• Focus on gesture, structure and proportion. Don’t prioritize rendering or anatomy, yet
• Work through the hands course https://www.nma.art/courses/how-to-draw-hands/

Today, I’ve gone through the first few videos – so I’m still learning the anatomical vocab and basic gestures. Can’t wait to learn more!

[nick.lagrow]

Day 2

Figure today – focusing on the hand! It’s tough to get the small lines right for the hand with charcoal. Also didn’t leave myself enough room on the page for that right foot, oops!

[erikdennes]

Glad to have you back for another challenge, Nick.  Can’t wait to see your progress.  Looks like a good start.  Any reason why you are limiting yourself to charcoal?

[nick.lagrow]

Hey Erik! I’m excited to keep going 🙂 Not really, besides knowing I always have some available / not having to think about it. I’d love to branch out at some point! Do you have any suggestions that’d go well with the figure / hand studies?

[nick.lagrow]

Day 3

Learned about the bones of the hand from the videos. Also briefly read through Michael Hampton’s pages on Hands in Figure Drawing Design and Invention.

Right now, focusing on rough proportions between the metacarpals and phalanges. I can tell perspective of the fingers is going to be a challenge in a lot of these! Especially placing the fingernails.

[nick.lagrow]

Day 4

Had to restart a couple of times to make sure the whole pose would fit on the page – learning to appreciate the quick gesture for proportions.

notes to self:

• hands
  • rough proportion of the hand – length middle finger  = length metacarpal+carpals
  • entire hand length ~ chin to hairline on the face
  • in both hands, seeing the lateral view / back of the thumb + fingers should be “wedges” from the side
• figure
  • think about shape of ribcage – narrower at the top / don’t make shoulder girdle too wide
  • “coke bottle” shape from Steve Huston’s lessons – gesture ribcage into neck
  • length legs >= length rest of figure to head (err to longer legs)

[nick.lagrow]

Day 5

Back to hands – I though this one would be an easy one to see the tendons on the back of the hand, but I ended up getting confused.

• Looking at the reference, the tendon from the index finger is pretty much vertical – on my drawing this would make it so the tendons don’t meet right at the wrist
• Looking at it after scanning, I made the wrist too thin (on the left / medial side) – I think fixing that would help

[erikdennes]

Hey Nick,  choice of medium is really a personal one.  Pen and ink, conte crayon, pastel pencil like carbothello,  sepia or sanguine chalk, vine charcoal are all suitable.      Trying out different things makes it more fun, and if you vary your mediums a little bit then it breaks you out of your habits because you are having to adjust to the new medium.   Sometimes, for this reason, you might really hate using a particular new medium, but when you get a little more comfortable with it you end up loving it.  Draw with a hard medium for a while, then use a soft medium and see how you react to it differently.  You can gain valuable experience applying the same fundamentals using different tools.  Once you get really good at that, it doesn’t matter what tool you are using.

[nick.lagrow]

Thanks Erik! Love the explanation. Once I’ve had some more practice with the basics of the hand in this challenge, I’ll swap out to a different medium or two. I’ve been using pencils and charcoal pencils for awhile now, so maybe something without a sharp tip – like chalk- will be a good way to break up some habits.

Here’s day 6

• Had a lot of trouble with the foreshortened legs, esp. the right leg. Eventually stopped focusing on it, since I want to reinforce the hand lessons.
• Pretty happy with the hands – they’re a little larger than on the model, but even then it was hard to indicate details like creases/knuckles/nails

[nick.lagrow]

Day 7

Trying the anterior view

• It was tougher to get the finger relationships w/o the tendons on the back of the hand.
• Also it felt like something was off on the thumb – comparing to the reference, I think it’s the angle of the bottom of the palm

[nick.lagrow]

Day 8

I liked how clear the planes on the torso were on this pose

• Focused on torso proportion, perspective
• Hand gesture & structure – still need to understand the wrist connection better
• Make sure legs aren’t shortened / general proportions across the figure

[nick.lagrow]

Day 9

Biggest challenge today was placing the thumb – took a lot of editing to try to understand the perspective & proportion

• started off with the wrist really thin, fixing that helped make sense of the thumb angles
• connection between the thumb and index finger (first dorsal interosseus) was all in shadow – trying the position on my own hand might’ve helped, especially a gesture from the palm onto the index finger

[nick.lagrow]

Day 10

Not super pleased with this one – still spent the most time on the hands, but I had overall trouble with the pose.

• shoulder girdle – connections don’t make sense, maybe drawing through to get the form of the ribcage better would help. Also the planes of the shoulders
• trouble w/ the legs, in general. Right upper leg should be more foreshortened.

Hands

• Left hand fingers are rotated a little bit more – angles at end of little finger off
• right hand – would be an interesting vie to try as a separate study, hard to see much detail in the reference image

[nick.lagrow]

Day 11

A couple today plus one from last night. Working my way through Steve Huston’s hands videos in the course now

• In each of these, I’m thinking about the nails / finger tips and the knuckles
• Thinking about thumb shape and the structure of the tip of the thumb

[nick.lagrow]

Day 12

Similar pose (in the legs) to day 10. I paid better attention to the foreshortened upper leg which looks closer. I could use some more practice with fundamental tubes / shapes inn perspective – might try to do some of that in the evenings. The lower right leg was is too short in this one. I’m making a note of the poses (from the Maude figure series) – I want to try these again when I understand the legs and feet better and see if I can improve on the perspective.

I’ve been learning about the rotation of the radius / relation to the ulna in the hand videos – and how they both connect to the elbow & wrist joints. The lighting on this pose (left arm) looks like a great study for the pronated arm and foreshortened hand – so worth looking back at this pose for that practice, too.

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