Next up is the study of arms and hands. Today we will look at the basic structure of the hand, and where to start hand drawing practice.
Structure of the arms and hands
The bone in the upper arm is called humerus. Bones forearms consist of the ulna and radius. The bones of the upper arm and forearm are connected by the elbow joint as a hinge.
Both ends of the ulna are directly visible under the skin at the elbow and at the outer edge of the wrist. The radius, which connects to the humerus also at the elbow joint, can rotate around the ulna almost 360 degrees. This rotation does not depend on the elbow joint or wrist, but occurs within the forearm itself.
Major muscles of the shoulder are biceps on the front and triceps on the back. They control the bend of the arm at the elbow.
Wrist controls all movements except rotation - that is, back and forth and side to side. It consists of eight small bones, known as carpal bones, arranged in two transverse rows.
Brushes consist of metacarpal bones and phalanges. On back side The palm's bone and muscle structures are located just under the skin. And on the palm there is a thick layer of protective fabric that acts as an addition.
How to draw hands?
There are entire books devoted to the topic hand drawing. Despite the fact that the hands consist of large number small bones with accompanying muscles, ligaments and tendons, human hands amazingly flexible and versatile.
The best way to start learning is make drawings of your hands using a mirror. To learn how to draw hands well, you will have to do a lot of research from life.
Imagine palm like a flat square shape with a curved outer edge from which four fingers emerge, and the thumb is formed from a flexible wedge shape extending from one side of the palm.
Practical task
Hands are quite difficult to draw. Start your hand drawing practice by redrawing sketches of arms and hands in various positions, and then move on to drawing from life. Make sketches of men's, women's, children's and old people's hands. The more sketches, the better.
The article used materials from the books:
— Ron Tiner “Figure Drawing without a model”;
— Loomis E. Nude. Drawing Guide.
Drawing hands is actually very difficult. There is an anecdote that still lives among the walls of art institutions, which tells about an artist who, in order not to be embarrassed, painted his hands in his pockets and his feet in the grass. Hands are also a three-dimensional form, and it is the volume that needs to be conveyed. But that's not the worst thing. The most difficult thing is to get the proportions right. Already in second place is the transfer of movement and anatomical features. I'm not belittling the importance of knowledge of anatomy, it should be. But if you do not maintain proportions from the very beginning, further work will not bring a positive result. For example, a sitter sits in front of you. His hands are in the right position, in a certain angle. So you need to correctly grasp the position of the hand from the perspective. And for this, look for proportions. The slightest inaccuracy and the “correct” picture will not work. And you notice this inaccuracy already halfway to completing the work, no matter how regrettable it is.
I'll try to explain it differently. To begin with, you probably need to look at the following figure:
It is not necessary to know what the bone is called. It is enough to understand that the hand is not an amorphous material, not an inflated ball - it is bones covered with muscles, ligaments, and skin. Remember the proportional relationships of the parts of the skeleton of the hand.
When you draw from life, your hand will probably be at an angle, which will complicate your task. It will be necessary to convey the proportions of the “picture” itself, taking into account the proportions of the hands.
You need to start drawing a hand not individually, but as a total volume. You outline the volume along with all your fingers and then “break it up” into sections, ultimately highlighting each finger.
If you take a ball in your palm, it will take its shape. It will be easier to understand if you do it yourself. Of course, the hand can take different positions, and its shape will change. But the basics must always be taken into account. This is how Bammes drew:
After outlining the shape and all the details, you can come to the rendering of light and shade. We first determine (in general) a light spot and a dark spot and apply a soft stroke over the shadow. And then we do everything according to the principle as described on the page.
Featured here are the works of artist Andrew Loomis. The structure is shown very well, all volumes are perfectly conveyed. You can directly take and copy taking into account all proportional relationships. It is very well shown that the structure of the palm is based on a ball. Look how the fist is drawn. Start by conveying the basic proportional relationships, height and width, and basic masses. When you outline this on the sheet, proceed to constructing the main volumes. Outline your nails last, sometimes just a light outline with a pencil is enough.
After this, you can move on to the transfer of light and shadow, which will help convey volume. Please note that here light and shadow performs an additional function. It is used with light hints, clarifying volumes and shape.
Below are his drawings of children's hands. The hands of babies differ from the hands of adults in that the palm is more weighty and fleshy in relation to the fingers. The joints are practically invisible on chubby arms. This can lead to problems with misunderstanding; the baby’s hands may turn out to be “cotton-like.” Having already somewhat understood the structure of an adult hand, you need to move on to drawing the hands of babies. Schematically, a baby’s hand can be fit into a rectangle, close to a square, or even into a square.
Hands of older children. Slight differences begin to appear between the boy's hand and the girl's hand. The boy's hand is larger and stronger. Muscles and joints are better visible. A distinctive feature of a girl’s hands is that they are thicker, narrower, not muscular, the fingers are thinner, the nails are narrower. Joints and muscles are less visible. In drawing children's hands, the tendons are not transferred. They are still practically not expressed.
Women's hands have noticeable distinctive features from men's. Like everyone else in woman's face, the figure, and the hands themselves. They are drawn more delicate, with light rounded surfaces, more graceful. For greater grace of a woman's hand, middle finger should be about half the length of the palm; oval nails also add grace. Joints are easily conveyed; they can be conveyed by hints, small dimples, like those of an infant’s hands.
Hands are difficult to draw, especially from perspective. Many artists believe that the ability to draw hands is the indicator of a master. And this can only be achieved with practice and diligent work. It won't work right away.
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Anatomy of hands when drawing
Video lesson: how to draw realistic hands with a pencil
How to draw the proportions of a person's hands
How to draw palms
Hand drawing angles
Video lesson: how to draw a hand with an extended index finger
How to draw women's hands with a pencil
Video: how to draw a man's fist and a woman's hand with a pencil
How to draw women's hands from different angles (detailed photo lesson)
- Step 1
You can fit several options for turning your hand at once. Mark them using a base oval and a guide line.
- Step 2
How to draw hands. Start drawing individual fingers.
- Step 3
The next step is to draw the contours in more detail.
- Step 4
Erase unnecessary lines, mark small folds of skin and nails.
- Step 5
How to draw hands. Use a TM pencil to shade the shadow on the brush, just try not to immediately darken it.
- Step 6
The next brush is oriented a little differently. This angle can be used quite often in drawings. Outline the general shape.
- Step 7
Refine the drawing of your fingertips
- Step 8
Draw the nails with a sharpened pencil.
- Step 9
Use a soft eraser to remove all unnecessary construction lines.
- Step 10
Feel free to start working on the light and shade.
- Step 11
Now you can try to draw horizontal hands. Just like in the previous sketches, start by marking out the general shape.
- Step 12
Work out the contours of the hands in detail.
- Step 13
By using soft pencil You can add accents to the drawing to make it look natural.
- Step 14
Hard pencil draw a shadow on the lower arm.
- Step 15
Do the same with the top one.
Video: How to Draw Drawing Hands Step by Step
How to Draw Baby Hands with a Pencil
For many artists, drawing hands is quite a difficult task. In this lesson we will deal with the anatomy of the hands in order to simplify and understand all the details as much as possible.
Let's start by studying the bone structure of the hands (picture on the left). The 8 carpal bones are drawn in blue, the 5 metacarpal bones are purple, and the 14 phalanges are pink. Since many of these bones have no ability to move at all, let's simplify the basic structure of the hand: The picture on the right represents everything you need to remember when drawing.
Note that the actual base of the fingers - the joint that connects to the knuckles - is much lower than it appears visually. Knowing this is very important, especially when drawing bending fingers, which we will talk about a little later.
So, with all that said, a simple way to sketch a hand is to start with a basic hand shape, a flat outline (shaped very much like a steak, but round, square or trapezoidal) with rounded corners; and then complete the drawing with your fingers. Like this:
As for the fingers, when drawing you can use the “three cylinders” diagram. Cylinders are quite easy to depict from different viewing angles, which makes it much easier for us to draw fingers from different perspectives. See how to put this scheme into practice:
Important: the finger joints are not located in a straight line, but form a kind of “arch”:
In addition, the fingers themselves are not straight, but slightly curved. Such a small detail adds significant realism to the drawing:
Let's not forget about nails. It’s not necessary to draw them every time, but let’s still look at the main aspects:
1. The nail starts from the middle of the upper joint of the finger.
2. The point where the nail separates from the flesh is located differently for all people: for some it is at the very edge of the finger, for others it is much lower (dotted line in the picture).
3. Nails are not perfectly flat at all. Rather, they resemble tiles in shape, with a slight bend. Look at your hands and compare the nails on different fingers: you will see that each nail has its own curve - but, fortunately, you don’t have to draw such subtle details in each of your drawings :)
Proportions
So, let's denote the basic proportions, using the length of the index finger as the basic unit of measurement:
1. The maximum length of the distance between thumb and index - 1.5.
2. The maximum length of the distance between the index and ring fingers is 1.
3. The maximum length of the distance between the ring and little fingers is 1.
4. The maximum angle formed by the thumb and little finger is 90 degrees.
Range of motion
When drawing hands, it is extremely important to know exactly how our hands move.
Let's start with the thumb. Its base, as well as its center of movement, are located quite low on the hand.
1. In a normal relaxed state, a space is formed between the thumb and the other fingers.
2. Thumb You can bend it so that it touches the base of your little finger, but this will quickly become painful.
3. The thumb can be stretched across the entire width of the palm, but this can also be painful.
As for the remaining fingers, they have a smaller amplitude of movement to the sides, and mostly they bend towards the front, parallel to each other. Each finger can be bent individually, but it will still affect the other fingers. For example, try bending just your little finger and see what happens to the other fingers.
When the hand is clenched into a fist, all the fingers are intertwined together, and the entire hand forms a rounded shape, as if squeezing a large ball.
When the hand is fully extended (in the picture on the right), the fingers are either straight or slightly curved outward - depending on the plasticity of our hands.
The fully clenched palm deserves special attention:
1. The first and third folds form a cross.
2. The second fold is a continuation of the finger line.
3. The part of the finger covered by the skin and thumb serves as a reminder that the entire structure of the thumb is the one farthest from the center.
4. The knuckle of the middle finger protrudes more than the others.
5. The first and third folds again form a cross.
6. The thumb is bent so that its extreme part is shortened.
7. The skin fold in this place protrudes.
8. When the hand is clenched into a fist, the knuckles protrude and become more clearly visible.
Hand as a whole
When the hand is in its normal relaxed state, the fingers are slightly bent - especially if the hand is pointing upward, gravity causes the fingers to bend. In both cases, index fingers remain the most straight compared to the rest, and the little fingers, on the contrary, are the most bent.
Often the little finger “runs away” from the other fingers and is separate from them - this is another way to depict hands in the most realistic way. As for the index and middle, or middle and ring fingers, these are usually connected in pairs and “stick” to each other, while the other 2 remain free. This also helps to depict the hand more realistically.
Since all fingers are of different lengths, they always represent a certain gradation. When we take something with our hand, for example, a glass (as in the picture), the middle finger (1) is most visible, and the little finger (2) is barely visible.
When we hold a pen, the middle, ring and little fingers bend under the pen.
As you can see, the hand and wrist are perfectly articulated, and each finger, one might say, has its own life. This is why every beginner artist has a very difficult time drawing hands. On the other hand, sometimes some people go to the other extreme - they try to draw hands too carefully: they carefully draw each finger in its place, maintain proportions and clear parallels of all lines, and so on. And the result, as a rule, is quite harsh and not at all expressive. Yes. this might work for certain types characters - for example, your character naturally has such qualities. But much more often you would still like to portray animated, realistic hands, is not it? The picture shows some hand positions in comparison - too unnatural, tense positions are drawn on top, and more natural, natural ones are drawn below, in a word - those that can be seen in ordinary life around us.
Varieties of hands
As you know, each person's hands have many differences and distinctive features- just like faces. Men's hands are different from women's, the hands of young people are different from the hands of older people, and so on. Below are several classifications.
Hand shape
Let's see what different shapes and proportions there are between the fingers and the hand:
Finger shape
Not all people even have the same nails! They can be flat or round, and so on.
More practice!
- Pay more attention to people's hands. First, on the anatomy itself: how the fingers look in different positions, how lines and folds appear and disappear, how individual parts are tense, and so on. Secondly, pay attention to the types of hands: how men's hands differ from female hands? How do they change with age? How do they depend on a person’s weight? Could you recognize someone just by their hands?
- Make quick, dynamic sketches of hands, the source of which can be anything - your own hands, or the hands of people around you, or just photographs. Don't worry about correct proportions and generally speaking appearance and the similarities of your sketches; The main thing in sketches is to capture the expression itself and express it on paper.
- Draw your own hands in different positions and using a mirror from different viewing angles. You can also start with small dynamic sketches.
This lesson is related to "How to Draw a Person" and if you look in more detail, in this lesson I will tell you “ How to draw a hand»
First, we should pay attention to our hands. They consist of three parts: the shoulder, forearm and hand. Each of them can be depicted as ovals, or you just need to learn how to draw a hand right away. If you are depicting a lowered hand, then the fingertips will reach the middle of the thigh, and the elbows will be level with the waist.
So we looked at the method with a simplified hand shape, now let’s improve it so that it looks more natural. When you draw hands, you don't want to draw them too straight. We start with the shoulder, it has a smooth bend, near the elbow the arm narrows a little and widens again in the place where the biceps is located.
The elbow will be somewhat difficult to draw, because it is not just a bend, it is a connection, a hinge.
Next is the brush. Let's imagine each of the segments as a cylinder, and now turn your hand over, palm up, and you will see three almost identical segments on each finger. Well, because all the fingers are different in length, the pads and folds that are between them do not line up in one line.
Let's get started draw a hand from the joints of the fingers from the bones. The first joint is the largest of all three. The second joint is located between the two (in the middle), it is smaller and shorter than the first, but longer than the third joint - the tip of the finger. It is not possible to draw all fingers using this method, since each finger has a different length.
On top of the phalanges of the fingers you need to draw straight lines, and on the side of the palm - rounded.
But let's not forget that a man's hand is slightly different from a woman's. Male hand more massive and more sinewy. There are three options for drawing a hand: Muscular, toned and weak hand. 
What conclusions can be drawn from this lesson?! There is only one conclusion: draw a hand not as difficult as it might seem at first glance
