Gesture Drawings Of My Hand - Tips and Advice with many examples!

The anatomy of the hand is extremely important if you're an artist. Some people hate them while others enjoy them but they must be done regardless if you are drawing people. The key to drawing the hand is seeing it clearly. Realize it can be broken down into simple shapes for each bone of the fingers and the rest of the hand. If you rush the drawing you will likely miss the small differences that give the hand it's shape.

The other issue is perspective. The hand in profile may be simple to draw but you need to know how to draw it from various angles. This would distort simple forms that make up the hand and your preconceived notions of how it should look. That is why it's important to draw what you see and not what you imagine a hand looks like. The best way to practice is to draw your own non-dominant hand from various angles, constantly challenging yourself with the angles you draw it from.

Here are some examples of me practicing hand drawing from my own hand.

You can focus more closely on the shapes of the fingers from different angles but would still recommend to draw the hand as a whole most of the time.

The more you draw, the more you notice subtle things you never noticed before such. You realize you hand made certain fingers longer than they were meant to be or the fingers never used to clearly look like they could curl into a fist.

You will also become faster and more efficient at drawing the hand. If it took you 10 minutes to draw one hand it may only take 30 seconds when you become proficient enough. This also makes your work more expressive.

I also practiced drawing my own feet as they are just as important but a little harder to draw from different angles.

It is important that once one pose become easy that you challenge yourself by doing a hand pose you've never done before.

Drawing hands are one of the best ways to draw from life when you don't have a model. They are always challenging enough to learn from and can transfer your skills learned to larger models in future.

I would encourage anyone to try and draw their own hand not as many times as this but at least from two different angles. It will increase your observational skills, drawings skills and much more.
Thanks for checking this post out! :)
Ian,