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.
Pathways are directional marks and shapes for our eyes to follow across a 2 dimensional artwork. They are a powerful compositional tool to keep the viewer’s eyes engaged and moving around a composition. They’re also great for artists to practice, because they emphasize that if we’re to think compositionally, each part must play a role …
In preparation for my Tone to Color in Figures class, I’ve been looking at figure drawings with charcoal, ink, even a bit of paint in them. Below are some of Henry Moore’s figure drawings. Henry Moore was an English artist who produced most of his best known work in the early to mid 1900s. As …
[image_with_animation image_url=”6299″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Sara Rahbar Wiki: Sara Rahbar (born in 1976 in Tehran, Iran) is a contemporary, mixed media artist based in New York City. Her work ranges from photography to sculpture to installation and often stems from her personal experiences and is largely autobiographical. In 1982, Rahbar and her family fled …
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
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Pathways are directional marks and shapes for our eyes to follow across a 2 dimensional artwork. They are a powerful compositional tool to keep the viewer’s eyes engaged and moving around a composition. They’re also great for artists to practice, because they emphasize that if we’re to think compositionally, each part must play a role …
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In preparation for my Tone to Color in Figures class, I’ve been looking at figure drawings with charcoal, ink, even a bit of paint in them. Below are some of Henry Moore’s figure drawings. Henry Moore was an English artist who produced most of his best known work in the early to mid 1900s. As …
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[image_with_animation image_url=”5980″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] ” load_in_animation=”none Happy day-after-your birthday Alex Walker!
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[image_with_animation image_url=”6299″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Sara Rahbar Wiki: Sara Rahbar (born in 1976 in Tehran, Iran) is a contemporary, mixed media artist based in New York City. Her work ranges from photography to sculpture to installation and often stems from her personal experiences and is largely autobiographical. In 1982, Rahbar and her family fled …