Drawing Hands

By Carl Cheek

An indispensable and easy-to-follow companion for the intermediate art student, this concise guide focuses on how to capture the natural representation of the human hand in all its forms and motions.
Over 100 clear and expertly rendered drawings help artists discover:
• The subtle but crucial differences between hands of young and old, male and female
• How to accurately draw hands engaged in a variety of activities
• Skeletal and muscular depictions, which help reveal how to naturally draw the workings of the magnificent human hand
Educated in England at the Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College of Art, the works of Carl Cheek were widely exhibited in Europe throughout the 1950s. His artwork is included in numerous private and public collections, including Britain's important and often-visited Government Art Collection.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Release date: Mar 8, 2012
• ISBN: 9780486141909

Book preview

MOODS

INTRODUCTION

At the outset I should like to make clear the fact that there is no specific rule or formula for drawing any object and that the hand is no exception.

In view, however, of the complexity of form and movement inherent in hands, it is true that they do present many difficulties to the draughtsman and painter.

The achievement of fullness, variety and clarity at one and the same time is always a problem and particularly so, it seems, in dealing with the forms of the hand.

The fact that we are aware of being surrounded more often by clothed individuals than otherwise has led to our being almost as conditioned in our attitude to hands as we have become to the human face. They have come to be regarded as expressive features (emotive fragments) of the human being, subsidiary only to the face, and our incurious familiarity with them continually comes between us and any endeavor to view them in an objective or dispassionate