Week 12: Silke & Don

Silke

Silke has taken the time to really study her hand, drawing several angles and multiple views of her left hand in her Stilmen + Bern diary. She has used Polychromo pencils to try different effects and ways of shading in colours. These are lovely drawings showing gesture and movement. Proportions and shapes are good - some of the poses such as the blue hand had difficult foreshortening that Silke has observed and drawn well. The use of line and minimal shading is quite effective.

An excellent series of drawing studies.

Don

Like Silke, Don has done a series of drawings studying his left hand using HB, 2B + 4B on a 210 medium toothed paper. He tells me that he read the Brent Eviston tutorial and looked as several YouTube videos before begining. Don feels he doesn't readily see the Block and Cylinder forms in his hand, but understood the process well enough to begin.

Here in his first two drawings you can see his process and development. The first hand, #1 is somewhat tentative, feeling out the structure and shapes. A bit of confusion how the ring and pinkie fingers bend. But the proportions and basic understanding is good.

#2 is much better, and you can see that Don's knowledge and familiarity with the forms has improved allowing him to be less concerned with line and start to develop tone and shadows to create the shapes. Each of these first two drawings took him about 30 minutes

'Left Hand #Don1 & #2'  by Don

These first two drawings gave Don a level of knowledge and insight to create a third, more finished work that explores the shape of his hand with greater perception. He took a bit longer to create this work - about and hour. The use of tonal strokes to create shadows that form highlighted veins and knuckles is very good. Attention to the nails has been well observed. Shading, tone and shadow create the shapes of the hand and fingers rather than reliance on line alone. The first phalanges of the middle finger is perhaps a bit too long - I think the knuckle should have been moved forword somewhat. Overall this is a nicely observed and rendered drawing of Don's left hand; the character, age and 'life' of this hand is very well done!

'Left Hand #3' by Don