Hands do a lot of the talking for us. AJ Power reminded me of this when I dropped in on a recent Comics class. He was inviting students to illustrate the moods and interactions between characters by drawing their hands in gestures. That hit me as one of those obvious yet totally overlooked aspects of figurative work, and expressive portraiture. Where are the hands?!? All of the narratives, emotions, and expressions people can express with their hands! Why haven’t we been drawing them in my portraits and figurative classes?
I was so excited about the idea that I made a class to study expressive hands and heads. I started thinking about what works in a drawing and what doesn’t, and I started collecting examples. Some I collected because I appreciated the rendering. Some I collected because the artist surpassed drawing and the art reads as pure expression.
I’ve collected so many I’ll be sending these in installments, starting with my favorite: Käthe Kollwitz. Her drawings and prints surpass rendering and elevate to pure expression. Look how she combines hands and head together, with the hands oversized, acting as the primary voice or expression, quite often speaking more for the person than the face. The body, if it is included, is simplified to support the expression of the hands. Other narrative elements are edited out. She’s powerfully direct, and in that directness, she gives us deeply relatable emotions and primal narrative, all through physical gesture.
…The keenest among you might have noticed that a few drawings are kind of similar to a study, only reversed. Remember prints make reverse images, so while flipped imagery isn’t common for drawings and paintings, it is a natural part of the printmaking process.
I’ll be sharing my drawings on Facebook. I’d love for you to share yours too. Maybe we’ll get some people jumping in to join us. Post your pics on the Seattle Artist League‘s Facebook, or Instagram at SeattleArtLeague. #drawingaday #seattleartleague
Exercise your creativity This SAL Challenge is a vocabulary based creative challenge every day for January. Materials are artist’s choice. You can draw, paint, sew, collage, sculpt your food, anything you want. See below for today’s creative challenge. Set the timer for 20 minutes and see what happens. PUERILE childishly silly and trivial. #salchallenge @seattleartistleague …
Hey Artists! For the first day of our creative challenge, the suggestion was blind contour self portraits. As of 10pm Jan 1, there are 100 scribble-fabulous self portrait posts on Instagram with the #30SAL. How exciting! Now here’s your second…. Barbara Cooney Barbara Cooney (August 6, 1917 – March 10, 2000) was an American writer and …
[image_with_animation image_url=”9505″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] This is the fifth part of a multi day series, sharing work by my beginning figure drawing classes. Many of these students have never taken a drawing class before, nearly all of them are new to figure drawing. Rather than learning one style, we study a different approach every …
Drawing Hands: Käthe Kollwitz
Hands do a lot of the talking for us. AJ Power reminded me of this when I dropped in on a recent Comics class. He was inviting students to illustrate the moods and interactions between characters by drawing their hands in gestures. That hit me as one of those obvious yet totally overlooked aspects of figurative work, and expressive portraiture. Where are the hands?!? All of the narratives, emotions, and expressions people can express with their hands! Why haven’t we been drawing them in my portraits and figurative classes?
I was so excited about the idea that I made a class to study expressive hands and heads. I started thinking about what works in a drawing and what doesn’t, and I started collecting examples. Some I collected because I appreciated the rendering. Some I collected because the artist surpassed drawing and the art reads as pure expression.
I’ve collected so many I’ll be sending these in installments, starting with my favorite: Käthe Kollwitz. Her drawings and prints surpass rendering and elevate to pure expression. Look how she combines hands and head together, with the hands oversized, acting as the primary voice or expression, quite often speaking more for the person than the face. The body, if it is included, is simplified to support the expression of the hands. Other narrative elements are edited out. She’s powerfully direct, and in that directness, she gives us deeply relatable emotions and primal narrative, all through physical gesture.
…The keenest among you might have noticed that a few drawings are kind of similar to a study, only reversed. Remember prints make reverse images, so while flipped imagery isn’t common for drawings and paintings, it is a natural part of the printmaking process.
Related Classes
Expressive Portraits starts 9/18
Head & Hands starts 9/25
Comics starts 10/7
Woodblock Portraits starts 10/19
Related Posts
Drawing A Day, Day 5
I’ll be sharing my drawings on Facebook. I’d love for you to share yours too. Maybe we’ll get some people jumping in to join us. Post your pics on the Seattle Artist League‘s Facebook, or Instagram at SeattleArtLeague. #drawingaday #seattleartleague
SAL Challenge 7: PUERILE
Exercise your creativity This SAL Challenge is a vocabulary based creative challenge every day for January. Materials are artist’s choice. You can draw, paint, sew, collage, sculpt your food, anything you want. See below for today’s creative challenge. Set the timer for 20 minutes and see what happens. PUERILE childishly silly and trivial. #salchallenge @seattleartistleague …
30SAL Challenge: Chanticleer
Hey Artists! For the first day of our creative challenge, the suggestion was blind contour self portraits. As of 10pm Jan 1, there are 100 scribble-fabulous self portrait posts on Instagram with the #30SAL. How exciting! Now here’s your second…. Barbara Cooney Barbara Cooney (August 6, 1917 – March 10, 2000) was an American writer and …
Beginner’s Drawings That’ll Knock Your Socks Off (Part 5)
[image_with_animation image_url=”9505″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] This is the fifth part of a multi day series, sharing work by my beginning figure drawing classes. Many of these students have never taken a drawing class before, nearly all of them are new to figure drawing. Rather than learning one style, we study a different approach every …