Hand Drawing Number Seventeen
24th May 2006
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 guess that's a sign that I'm becoming more comfortable with it. Also I think it makes for nicer drawings.
This drawing was approached like a Bargue drawing, almost all my drawings are now to a greater or lesser extent. First I put in the centre line on my drawing, then visualised a centre line through my hand. After marking in the top and bottom points where the edges of my hand crossed the centre line, I put in a couple of other points within these to get some idea of the proportion, then fixed the furthest point to the right. Once this was done, I could see where the main block shapes needed to go and worked down in levels of detail from there. I knew it was time to stop when my hand started aching from holding this position.