Drawing & Painting Hands

(C) 2016 Dale DiMauro

Drawing hands is a challenge. Most artists would consider it the hardest part of the human anatomy to convey with accuracy. It is important to get the proportion of the fingers correct while getting the angles of the digits believable. In addition to the five fingers with varying lengths, knuckles, fingernails, creases and shadows project from this complicated form. Finally, mixing an accurate skin tone can be a challenge in of itself.

Many artists have told me to minimize the hands unless the focus is on the hands. In this painting you can see that the darks on the perimeter of the fingers bring out the light color of the hands. I often mix yellow ochre with quinacridone rose and a touch of raw umber on my palette to come up with my skin color. Of course, if the hand is in a shadow I put a wash of ultramarine blue to cool it or set it back somewhat.

Regardless of the difficulty in conveying hands in drawing and painting, they communicate much about the individual. Some people have weathered, callused and discolored hands while others have slender, smooth and unblemished ones.