Hand Studies

I've always had fun drawing hands. They can be in so many different poses, they have character, and they're readily available. They're also one of the more complicated parts of the body to draw. Despite this, I enjoyed the simpleness of this assignment: all we needed was paper, a pencil or charcoal, and our hands. I prefer the simplicity and directness of drawing over more complicated art processes.

I chose to draw in pencil because, while I prefer charcoal, I thought trying to draw with charcoal with my left hand might be too messy. I was worried that through smudging it would be more difficult to depict my right hand the way I wanted to. Hands, also, feel too delicate to draw in charcoal. Drawing in pen would have been my preferred method--it's nice living with your mistakes, and it makes you more careful in the first place.

I have rarely tried writing, let alone drawing, with my left (non-dominant) hand. It's strange how weak it felt as soon as I held the pencil, even before I actually tried to draw anything. Strangely, when I first started drawing, my hand wanted to draw the mirror image of my right hand--so it looked like I had drawn two left hands. I realized this after not too long and started over, and it felt very awkward for some reason, drawing my right hand the right way.  While both drawings are quite sketchy, I had a hard time controlling my pencil in my left hand, so it looks more scribble-y than the study of my left hand. Here are the two drawings:

Right hand drawing of left hand

Left hand drawing of right hand

When considering how uncomfortable my left hand felt while drawing, I was surprised the drawing came out as accurate as it did. In some ways, it seems a little closer to how my hands look than the drawing made by my right hand. While the first drawing is clearly a more "realistic" hand and the shading is rendered a bit more delicately, it is also a little too thick-wristed and emphasizes the palm of my hand over my fingers a little too much. My pointer finger is also kind of at a weird angle. The left hand drawing, on the other hand (har har), is not as "good" a drawing, but it captures my bony, rather thin wrist a little better. This may be because my left hand was not already used to drawing things a particular way, so I actually had to study more what my right hand looks like in order to draw it. While my left hand would not be good at get any more finely detailed, and the quality of the lines it drew is pretty poor, it allowed me to look afresh at what my hands actually look like.

I think I want to try to write and draw with my left hand every day. It would be an interesting experiment, seeing how much I can improve its fine motor skills. Being closer to ambitextrosity would help in creating artworks, when the right hand for some reason cannot do it. I don't know if I would ever create entire art pieces only with my left hand, unless that relates to the meaning of the work, but I do think it would be good to do drawing exercises that way. I may create a new blog, just for my own self, where I upload studies I did with solely my left hand. Sounds like fun!