Monthly Archives: April 2014

egg shell

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I found this egg shell on a walk in some local woods. It was caught in a patch of light which made it stand out from the surrounding browns, greens and greys. The outside of the shell turned out to be almost exactly the hue of phthalo blue except for a slight green cast from the light coming through the foliage. This gave me a chance to try some acrylic glazing medium mixed with flow improver. After spreading the clear medium over part of the shell, a small amount of dilute grey green paint could be dropped in then spread and blended with a large clean damp brush.

A blackbird’s egg perhaps, or a song thrush. I’ve no idea if the contents escaped or were eaten.

hard hands

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Copy of a Leonard Starr panel.

Copy of a Leonard Starr panel.

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Hands are hard to draw, aren’t they? One slip of the pencil and a finger turns into a misshapen sausage, a thumb develops an extra joint. More than once have I tried to sketch a hand from memory only to find I’ve drawn five fingers and a thumb.

Andrew Loomis tells us to ‘get rid of the idea that hands are hard to draw. They are simply confusing to draw unless you know how they operate. Once understood, hands become fascinating.’

It’s helpful to keep the rules of proportion in the back of the mind while drawing, but the most useful advice from Loomis is more practical and vivid:

‘The most important fact to remember about the hand is that it is hollow on the palm side and convex on top. The pads are so arranged around the palm that even liquid can be held in the hand. The hand served primitive man as a cup…’

‘In the drawings above, note how the hollow of the hand has been carefully defined. Also note the resulting curve of the back of the hand. Hands never look natural or capable of grasping until the artist understands this feature of the hand. All these hands look as if they could take hold of an object. … A hand that does not look capable of clasping is badly drawn. Study your own hands.’

So, continuing the philosophy of ‘if you can’t draw noses, draw lots of noses’, I’m going through the process of copying drawings and photos of hands, hoping that something will stick.