Nick’s 100 Day Challenge Hands & Figure

[nick.lagrow]

Day 13

I wanted to try a pose with both hands. Today I was mostly thinking about the proportions between the two – and then I spent some time on the fingernail shapes.

• The fingers of the right hand look “flat” to me – next time I’ll spend some more time on describing the volume. E.g. in the ring finger and pinky you can see more of the side of the finger than described
• I’m interested in how the nail helps w/ perspective too – changing the angle of the nailbed had a big impact on whether the finger looked right

[nick.lagrow]

Day 14

The hands in this one ended up too small for details like the nails – so it was good practice trying for simpler characteristic shapes.

The pose itself has a good twist and pinch in the torso – I missed that gesture from the pelvis around to the ribcage, but this will be a good one to revisit to practice torso gesture.

[nick.lagrow]

Day 15

Getting into the weeds now! Today I wanted to focus on the perspective of the fingers at the expense of some proportion and gesture. I just watched Steve Huston’s video of fingernails – so I experimented with his advice to distort the fingernail shape a little bit to emphasize the perspective of the finger.

Re-drew the index finger a couple of times – but I still don’t have the foreshortening right. Part of my reasoning for doing this hands challenge was to get a lot more practice with tubes in perspective – so I’ll be practicing that more and try out a few more hands in this view.

[nick.lagrow]

Day 16

The air is a little cleaner in the Pacific NW – it’s misty outside but that’s a lot better than the smoke!

For the hand studies, I’m starting to look for references to try some master studies. From some online research, I found https://www.wikiart.org/ and https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/collections had a huge collection to sort through. For today though, practicing another full figure.

Proportion: Head is a little small and the torso ended up long – but the legs shouldn’t be too short this time! For my approach I’ve generally been using the height of the head as the standard “unit” for the rest of the body – so it’s interesting to see I added a little to that length for a lot of these estimates.

Hands: even using as much of the 9×12 inch sketchbook page as I can, it’s tough to get precise for any details with the charcoal pencil. But maybe that’s a good thing – in each of these figure poses, I need to practice simplifying the shapes so they still describe the anatomy without tiny lines. Also the charcoal only allows for erasing once or twice before it looks muddy.

In these, I’m worried I’m relying too much on the eraser – but I’m getting a lot closer to the right angles and proportions than when I’ve tried quicker timed gestures in the past. I’m hoping to practice on a timer once I’ve got a better handle on the basic anatomy of hands/feet/legs.

 

[nick.lagrow]

Day 17

More practice with finger perspective

• Index finger seems a little distorted – but I can’t tell just now from comparing to the reference. I think it’s the connection on the right side of the finger to the palm – a little wider maybe than it should be, making the finger look short
• Thumb shape looks like the side view – could show more of the “kidney bean” shape to show the end of the thumb

[nick.lagrow]

Day 18

Tried something different today. Outside of these daily drawings, I’m working on practicing basic forms & connections. I wanted to see how I envision basic forms within the figure for this pose. Looks like practicing the basic shapes of the torso will be helpful!

[nick.lagrow]

Day 19

Added the second hand from the reference I used for day 17. It was strange to draw the hand “upside down” even though it’s not an uncommon position – I haven’t run into it yet.

I wish I’d started worked lighter w/ the lines here – thumb especially looks messy and the orientation’s not clear.

[nick.lagrow]

Day 20

Today, just trying to be a little lighter on the initial gesture / lay in. Trying to balancing drawing through the form to get a sense of structure – but staying light enough that the “drawn through” lines don’t suggest the wrong forms.

[nick.lagrow]

Day 21

Not a super pretty drawing today!

• Thinking about each phalanx as a tube, and trying to get that perspective right – middle finger is the most clearly off imo. the proximal needed to be foreshortened more – elongating it plus comparing angles between the finger tips made a weird curve between the medial/distal tubes
• trying to keep gesture / lay in very light so I can be intentional about the suggestions from cross contours / connections
• treated the gesture of the knuckles as a straight line but should be more curved – index finger knuckle should be lower, especially

[nick.lagrow]

Day 22

Again focusing on lighter gesture, then committing to fewer lines on top of it.

[nick.lagrow]

Day 23

Just repetition today. Not much to do today – so I’m planning to make some more progress on Steve Huston’s course later today and get some more practice in.

[nick.lagrow]

Day 24

Practiced a longer lay in. Checked the proportions of the legs a few times, but looks like showing more of the structure will help. The foreshortening isn’t super clear, especially for her left leg.

Noticed that my instinct is to make the hands much smaller than they are – I think I managed to correct that for this one. I think it happens with feet too – but no feet today!

[nick.lagrow]

Day 25

Thinking about how the wrist “steps down” as a wedge shape into the hand. The angle of the wedge is too vertical, which I think distorts the hand in back a bit.

[nick.lagrow]

Day 26

Another longer lay in. I’m working on separating the light lines used to find the construction from the darker lines for contours, form etc. Still working light though and avoiding rendering – my main goal is still having a basic understanding of the forms.

Her right hand gave me more trouble on this one – but I could see a little improvement from my first lay in which was really flat. Adding some of the anatomy back in helped think about the form even though the photo washed out the palm.

[nick.lagrow]

Day 27

Thinking about gesture, the wrist connection, and crosshatching today.

• Gesture – Looking to the flow from the wrist into the index finger (ignoring the thumb) and how that’s repeated, to some extent, for each finger
• Wrist connection – still working on understanding the “step down” from the wrist into the hand – or, imagining the wrist as a wedge inserting into the hand
• Crosshatching – I’m trying to think about the form suggested by specific marks so I can get more intentional with each mark

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