September 11, 2017

Aug 1 and 2

Aug 3 and 4

Aug 5 and 6

Aug 7 and 8

Aug 9

Aug 10

Aug 11 and 12

Aug 13 and 14

Aug 15 and 16

Aug 17

Aug 18

Aug 19 and 20

Aug 21 and 22

Aug 23 and 24

Aug 25 and 26

Aug 27 and 28

Aug 29 and 30

Aug 31

Thirty-one hand drawings complete. All done in black Copic Multiliner pens and Sakura KOI Watercolor Brush Pens in three shades of warm grey.

Some thoughts:

1. I liked working with this combination of pens. The Copics did not bleed with the grey pens and the grey pens blended nicely on the gessoed paper. It didn’t occur to me at the time, but it might be nice to find a colourless blender pen to soften the transition between the lightest grey and the white of the paper. I may have to explore that.
2. Hands are made up of really weird shapes and can look pretty bizarre from different angles
3. I found it very valuable to focus on the shapes I was drawing, and not the fact that I was drawing hands. I was specifically thinking about drawing this fold in the skin or that bump of flesh or wrinkle and not about fingers or finger nails.
4. I enjoyed drawing the baby hands the last five days the most. The cute little chubby knuckles and pudgy fingers were more fun to draw than my own hands – especially when mine often came out looking old and claw like.
5. It is far easier to draw someone else’s hands than my own. I had to tape my sketchbook down to keep it from moving and then do a lot of squinting. And I would inevitably move my hand during the drawing and notice it only at the end when things didn’t quite line up as they should. I am very appreciative of my kids’ willingness to play hand models for me when they could.
6. I only drew from photos a few times – including the baby hands. I try to draw from life for the simple reason that I am here to learn and to develop my skills at flattening reality. If I have the camera doing that flattening first, I am limiting my opportunities to improve.
7. Overall I like the result of the August drawings and might have to take up a another theme in October. It helps not to have to try to decide what to draw each day. And surprisingly, I didn’t get bored with the repetition.