Hands and Skulls

Once moving on from learning about spines, ribs, and abs things had to get more specific in our figure drawing.  As we began focusing on things like hands, feet, and skulls we have had more of an opportunity to look at things individually, and really learn them inside out, apart from learning how they are integrated into a greater human figure.  Hands, skulls, and feet all have in common a structure that is based far more on what bones are beneath the skin than the muscles that move them.  Therefore special attention was given to understanding all of the tiny muscles in the hands and feet, and all of the different parts of the skull and mandible.  In terms of hands and feet we had opportunities to draw in front of models specifically trying to capture each.  For the skull we drew directly from a skeleton manikin, which worked out well for specifically capturing and understanding the bone structure beneath the skin.

These are student hands drawn from short ten minute or so poses.  What I wanted to capture here is a sense of gravity affecting each of the fingers and the muscles/tendons/ligaments that position them.  I had more active poses captured as well, but the hand on top seemed to be a more successful drawing.  I found that it was important to pay attention to the long axis of the finger in making sure that one does not end up with "sausage fingers" or anything that is too cylindrical or geometric.  The hands (and feet) have a lot of detail that can be captured if you keep in mind all of the bones that lie inside them.  It was an interesting challenge in trying to curve around and find these different bones and create a realistic hand.

  This is a skull that I captured from a skeleton model.  I really tried to pay attention to detail here, working each of the contour lines in very true and organized ways.  Due to the simpler, slightly more mechanical nature of the skeleton, I felt it was necessary to break a rule here and intentionally provide contour lines that are all evenly spaced out in sections.  This plays into the skulls symmetry and smooth, direct surfaces to me.