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Hi Nick, congratulations on doing a second hundred day challenge! Flipping through your work, you’re making a lot of progress. I like the simplicity of your designs. You capture the movement of the figures. Look forward to seeing more.
Nice work Nick. Are you using references for everything, or is some from imagination? My drawing from imagination still suck, but as Joe Weatherly says “It really shows what you know and what you don’t know.” Give it a try, and it will help cement some of those concepts about the forms of the hand in your head. Also, think about line quality and where you can make thicker or thinner lines especially on the contour. Thick lines with hard edges can indicate shadow, or bone near the surface of the skin. Thin, or broken lines can indicate the light side of a form. Soft edges can indicate roundness, etc. When I watch NMA videos, the instructors can all vary their line quality so well as they build up their drawings. I still have to make a separate pass through my drawings and just think about line quality. I find that it is worth the time and effort to be more descriptive and intentional with line quality, because it really brings life and character to your drawings.
Thanks Debra, and thanks Erik!
Are you using references for everything, or is some from imagination?
Everything I’ve posted here is from references, so far. Once in awhile I’ll try one from imagination as I’m warming up – and I absolutely agree! I think now that I’ve made it through most of Steve Huston’s lessons, I’ll mix in some other (still Hand-related) types of drawings:
- Master studies
- Try a quicker sketch + then re-draw it from imagination
- Fully from imagination
Also, think about line quality and where you can make thicker or thinner lines especially on the contour. Thick lines with hard edges can indicate shadow, or bone near the surface of the skin. Thin, or broken lines can indicate the light side of a form. Soft edges can indicate roundness, etc. When I watch NMA videos, the instructors can all vary their line quality so well as they build up their drawings. I still have to make a separate pass through my drawings and just think about line quality. I find that it is worth the time and effort to be more descriptive and intentional with line quality, because it really brings life and character to your drawings.
Yes! Love the breakdown. I’ve read / heard the advice, but I feel like I’m only now starting to be able to work on it in practice. I’ll make a note of the differences – I think practicing each on their own or focusing on one type in a drawing could be helpful. And yeah, the instructors make it look so easy 🙂 So far what I’ve been trying:
- Very light lay ins / gesture – especially during the last challenge, so many of those initial lines where I’m just figuring out the forms, proportions, perspective etc were too heavy and became part of the end result. I’m learning how all of those stray marks (or even a few) can totally throw off the illusion
- I’m trying to keep to simple / not rendered drawings for this purpose too – I feel like I don’t have enough control yet to make lines with varied weight, so focusing on the contours and just a little bit on the inside
- I’ve also been practicing with an ink brush pen, trying something new (and maybe a precursor to a brush+ink once I have a little better setup). So far just practicing lines, circles, ellipses etc.
Here’s today – Day 28
Not much variation in line weight / quality yet – but I’m working on using fewer, longer, more continuous lines (and intentional) lines on top of a light lay in.
I couldn’t get a good sense of the feet or the visible hand on this pose… I’ve consistently had trouble when the palm is flat on the ground, so that’s something to practice.
Day 29
Low motivation today – very glad it’s Friday!
Today I was interested in perspective – the boxy shape of the hand (and wrist) and especially the plane connecting the hand to the fingers. I want to take Erik’s advice on line quality, so I’ll start practicing that on days I draw hands, especially. It seems like there’s a good mix of bony forms and cast shadows for hard edges as well as the roundness of the fingers / arm to try softer edges.
Day 30
Motivation was hard to come by today. Threw off my routine a bit, which made it so much harder to sit down and get to work. Didn’t start this one off with a good idea of how much I’d describe the light or a focus area, so it felt kind of unfocused.
Day 31
Testing myself today to see how much I can remember from the lectures by inventing a couple of hands. It’s hard not to cheat a little with hands because they’re right in front of you 🙂
Some things that jumped out:
- On the left hand, double check the gestures between the knuckles. Index and middle finger are close to the same, index slightly shorter. Smaller two fingers are on a steeper curve.
- Biggest theme for both is the thumb – I don’t have a good idea how it articulates, where the metacarpal starts & length relative to the index finger m.c, and how the FDI / thenar eminence overlap w/ the index finger
- Proportions generally felt OK, using the middle finger phalanges length = to the length of the wrist + metacarpal, then 2/3 each length for the next two phalanges
- Good reminder that the carpals are there, easy to forget in drawing from observation
Also useful for motivation / figuring out what to do next – going to do some thumbs from observation
Day 32
I wanted to practice the soft edges on this pose following the gesture line. Ended up muddy – need to get the shadow values to be more distinct from the light. I have trouble getting a consistent light tone with the charcoal – maybe moving to a darker key overall would help.
Day 33
Focusing on the thumb. Paying attention to the thickness of the thumb, form of the thenar eminence, overlaps, and how it connects to the wrist.
Day 34
For the last few figures, I’ve started with placing the top/bottom/middle of the figure, I think it’s helped a little with proportions. Today I wanted to experiment a little with value and line weight. I’ll need to practice laying down values around the forms – it’s really noticeable where values follow the form (her right leg) vs where they are “lines” across the drawing, (her left leg, back).
Hands: What I thought was the pinky on her right hand was the thumb of the left hand, which made things a little wonky. Note to self – imagine what the anatomy is doing rather than just observe 🙂
Day 35
Choosing poses that clearly show the thumb and how it articulates. Few thoughts from today:
- Every day now I’m trying to set the bounds of the drawing ahead of time to work on not distortitng proportions
- Main focus is the thumb attachment. Overlaps don’t seem quite right – next time will check it on my own hand for the parts I can’t see well in photo ref
- Practicing mark making – trying for a light hard edge on the contour in the light, dark hard edge on the other side / bony structures. Firm edge to show the major shadow shape
- Remember nail placement
Day 36
Same approach as last time, although for this one I tried to just include the darkest shadows. Again worked on line weight – starting w/ a light sketch, and then trying to place longer continuous lines. A few proportion problems in her arms. I’m definitely finding it useful to lengthen the legs just a little bit (or at least err to longer legs vs torso)
Hands: Not much to observe in this pose! But that’s good too, good practice to hint at the anatomy with a few small lines.
Day 37
Couldn’t upload yesterday for some reason – but here’s day 37! Thumb practice from another angle, trying to push the darks darker. Index finger ended up narrow, didn’t pay attention to those proportions
Day 38
No hands visible in this pose – oh well!
I liked the boxy structure of the shoulder on this one – my eye was drawn there, maybe because of the gesture of her right leg up through her torso?
Experimented with line weights. Feet and hair still throw me off. Also placed her left breast low, next time double check angle between nipples as clear landmarks.
Day 39
Thinking about all the folds in the palm. Playing with value – and seeing how creating a value scale beforehand could be beneficial, I went in without a plan of how far I’d render this one and it looks inconsistent.
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