As part of my art course today's exercise required me to re-visit my non-drawing hand. Previously this was used to draw an outline, with directional lines being used to indicate the position of various knuckles, but this is my first attempt with full shading and shadows. Really though the object here is to bring a variety of techniques into play with a familiar object and see how it turns out. So this is my hand in a relaxed position:
I intentionally placed a light nearby to enhance the shadows and texture across my skin and I think that this has really helped; there's lots of interesting detail here to pick up on. As usual I started with an outline, traced directly, and moved onto trying to place key parts like my knuckles, fingernails and other features. With these basic elements in place I moved onto adding some shading, looking for the areas of greatest shadow and avoiding anywhere with highlights. After this I smoothed all of the shading manually and picked up some specific details:
What's nice about the result is that it shows how a picture can be constructed in layers with each iteration adding some new quality whether it's sharply defining the edge of a nail or picking up the very darkest shadows under the fingers. Set side-by-side with the photo it's clear that some of the digits are either a bit thin or a bit fat but I think that the overall effect is very pleasing and conveys a real sense of presence. A worthwhile experiment for sure.