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javicandraw — How to Draw Hands - A Youtube Tutorial
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Published: 2016-07-11 18:45:49 +0000 UTC; Views: 31008; Favourites: 489; Downloads: 0
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VIDEO HERE: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT_XWZ…The full week here! and a very hard one! Clearly I can't learn how to draw hands in just one week. So subscribe to this channel to see my ongoing struggle until I finally get it right!!!
Thanks for watching this video and remember to Suscribe for the best drawing lessons, tutorials and videos on How to draw eyes, head, the human body and more! All using Photoshop, Manga Studio, Sketchbook Pro and more!
Web: javicandraw.com
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Comments: 53
I don't know why you have hundreds of views when you should have thousands. Maybe it just takes time for word to get out. Meanwhile, I won't feel guilty taking more of your time (that's won't).
Here. I found some studies I did before your video ruined me for drawing hands! Mostly I have been preoccupied with painting hands while taking for granted that I can draw them. However, a review of my galleries and scraps showed practically no examples of hands drawn in a detailed way. Mostly there is an impression of the hand given via gesture and sometimes, as in the inks, just a few disconnected line segments suggest the hand in gestalt.
So, I'm very very curious to see how you follow up from parts 1-4. I now know how not to draw hands - at one point I knew how; I had it, then, watching your videos, lost it. And if it doesn't come back after watching your next installment . . . I WILL find you! 
BTW- I notice that you always mention Loomis, but never, yet, have mentioned Burne Hogarth. Loomis, Hogarth and Jack Hamm were my go-to guys when learning to draw. Hogarth has a whole book devoted to hands. Also, see George Bridgman's Book of a Hundred Hands.
Brush Hands by Sol-Caninus The Eternal Flame--Sundog Rising by Sol-Caninus Archie The Punisher by Sol-Caninus Buried Alive by Sol-Caninus
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I mention Loomis because it was the book I used to learn the human figure. years later I had some photocopies of parts of Hogarth's books but I never went too deep into them as I did with Loomis. Maybe I should!
I did videos 5-7 already, they are in the youtube channel. Part 7 gives my journey some kind of closure, and it involved going back a few steps and realizing what I was doing right, and what I was doing wrong. That video was a bit rushed, but mainly because instead of trying to solve the issues on camera, i sketched a lot first and then I didn't saw the reason to do a lot of live drawings when I could explain my conclusions with just one drawing and then show examples.
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I reviewed the videos and commented on youtube (as bagoglass1). You are not done, Javi. You've just been initiated. Now, it's time to get serious. You must (MUST) study the anatomy of the hand as if you were an apprentice in the studio of a Renaissance Master. Time to study the bones and muscles - know when surface forms are made by bone, muscle or tendon (as on the top of the hand).
Hey! Maybe your wife can get you into a morgue?
I learned a lot by participating with you - but you pissed me off when you kept skipping over the hand slides in the previous video - you skipped so many good ones.
My one word of advice is general - that is to train at gesture drawing by decreasing the time interval, weekly, until you can capture the gesture in ten seconds. After that, 30 seconds will feel easy and anything over two minutes will seem like an eternity. The purpose of course is to encourage a true understanding of gesture, which can only be apprehended, intuitively, when there is no time to think. One sees and acts in the same moment. You will astound yourself - as you astound me.
Oh! BTW - I got it back, thanks to you. So, you're safe.
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Thanks for all your advice! the thing is that sometimes warming up before a video has me solving the issues I was planning to attack on the video itself. Trying to pretend for the video feels unnatural and I wasn't going to do it. Besides, I got a bit tired of hands so I wasn't super motivated when I did it. They are not excuses, and I know I'm just beginning!! But for now, I'm going to move to something else to keep myself interested (I don't have a lot of patience)
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The Renaissance artists used all the devices we see in tutorials and recipe HTD books, today - but not as foundations. They used them as placeholders and abbreviations for actual anatomy. They learned the anatomy, first, then developed abbreviations for it. Working in that direction is for serious artists. Working the other way is for children. dilettantes and bad cartoonists (you know the kind - the ones who have one style of drawing where a nose looks like this and a tree looks like that.)
It pains me to see how much energy you devote to learning, only to abandon the task within striking distance of the goal. Boo! For shame.
I cannot tell you how many times I undertook to study something, then abandoned it, only to find out later (sometimes after years - decades - that I was on the right track to begin, and simply needed to persevere. Of course, I can forgive myself easier than I can forgive you; I did not know better, but you have the benefit of an others experience.
I understand how you feel. I've passed along the same path on the journey, so, truly, I understand your point of view, even though I don't condone it. How can I serve under these conditions? I'm afraid I must tender my resignation. 
Do yourself a favor, though, while all this hand research is still fresh in your mind - at least take a look at the bone structure, particularly the carpal bones. Then look at the bones of a bird's wings, a bat wing, a seal's flipper . . . a horses lower leg (it's a partial hand and finger!)
Ah. Well. "'Do as you will' shall be the whole of the law. . . "
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I will, don't worry, I'm not giving up on hands, I'm just not making any videos about them for a while, but I keep on practicing!
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Me? Of course! . . . er . . . well since you told me to, I think I may not! I need some sun. XD
(Actually, I'm spending my days resetting my computer after it malfunctioned and had to be wiped clean. It's a horror.)
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I used to have a massive library of art books. Unfortunately, it was digital, so, between hard drives crashing, virus infections and my own resistance to making back-ups, I have recovered only a small fraction of the original. All the same, I have the essentials and would be happy to put what i can in dropbox and send you a link. I have had it in mind to place a small collection at the disposal of fellow artists to spare the expense of purchase. Currently I have books linked on my profile page in the Quick Picks section. Unfortunately, free content is becoming scarce. I'm down to only three books. Used to offer more than twenty.
I'm going right now to review the videos. Can't wait!
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OOOOOooooo I'd love to have some of those books 
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This quote is from an old book from the 1800s. I have it on my profile page along with other quotes, famous and not so famous. There is much to be gleaned by reading the book, though it is long and rambling in the spirit of the time in which it was published, so, perhaps, not the best pick for someone without patience. lol. Maybe reading it could be used as an exercise to build patience?
"To those who are seeking a short road to Art, it may be unpalatable to be told that none can be shorter than that which knowledge makes short: and that there are no by-paths by which idleness and indifference may find their way to a goal, which is only to be reached by industry and intelligence. The really short road is that which is made so by entering on a right course from the outset, taking advantage of the instruction to be derived from the experience of others, and persevering until what is seen to be right be accomplished."
-- J.D. Harding, ON DRAWING TREES AND NATURE
(You are on the right road. You do it all, except the last - persevere. I think this is something to work into your drawing practice. Learn to integrate states of boredom and frustration with practice and exercise. Tedium is part of the process. If we can accept it when learning to draw boobs, why not fingers and hands and anything else? LOL. 
_______________________
BTW- You can collect a great number of books by Loomis, free, via Alex Hays. He continues to offer the most popular books, which for a long time were out of print. Now they are being reprinted and sold, so there is pressure to stop Hays and others from offering them free. But as far as I know, it is legal for him to do it, despite the hassles. So, with those two things: Alex Hays, Andrew Loomis, you can find your way to the website with Google.
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Lol I get bored and frustrated pretty easily. But this last year I learned that every time I got frustrated and stopped drawing to do something else for the rest of my day, someone else kept drawing and getting better and now kicks all kinds of ass. So that's what I must do!!!
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NP LOL XD No need to remind me. I was just recommending some books
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Thanks to you I am having trouble drawing hands! So, I had to think back on how I learned. There is a trick for it that applies to drawing other complicated things, like antlers. For the antlers one starts by drawing a ball over the animal's head, then draw the antlers as they wrap around the ball. For the hand, start by drawing a role of quarters, or a ball, or some other object (i.e. a page of a newspaper or a book) and then draw the hand gripping it. The object is as an aid to stabilize the mental image of the hand since it makes the gesture explicit - i.e. gripping a ball. (In any event, it works better than a hook.)
you will find an example of this method in Ken Hultgren, The Art of Animal Drawing where he uses it to get the shape of horse ears, elephant tusks, deer antlers, etc. I have seen it explained in other books, too. It's as old as the hills.
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I love this idea! Focus on the negative space!
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You are welcome! I hope you find it useful!
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Thanks so much for watching it!
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No thank you for creating it
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I love these their do helpful hands are such a drag to draw for me so I find these quite helpful
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Thank you for watching!!! we all struggle with hands, I still do, and I will for a while!
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Lol no problem, so true XD yeh hands have more detail than we think
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Ha! No! Senior. I wager one can learn to draw ANYTHING in a week. What one cannot do is memorize the complex anatomy and behavior of the hand in that small amount of time. LOL. (I know, I'm playing with the words. 
Okay. Enough of what I say. Let's see what you said!
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Haha. Yes. You cover it very well in the introduction. All these methods . . . all have a place in the classic drawing formula GESTURE> VOLUME> DETAIL. The key is to know to what each part of the formula refers in order to match the method to the step. And most people get busted on gesture. What is gesture? What is it really? Does one know when he is drawing a gesture versus when he is drawing a thing? (Most do not.) At what point does one cross over from drawing a gesture to drawing an object that is making that gesture?
While the answer to drawing hands is not in any one of the three parts of the drawing formula, still, it cannot be done without a primary emphasis on gesture. Gesture is vector- it is one dimensional - it has NO VOLUME. But in the stepwise progress to draw an object, the gesture is so quickly and suddenly volumized that it becomes a habit to completely ignore it - as when someone good with numbers performs parts of mathematical equations in his head, putting the answer on paper without so recording various parts of the process.
The first part of any analysis is to separate and define the variables. Only after that may they be recombined to advantage. The better the analysis, the better the the amalgamation. So, I say, again - what is gesture? And how does gesture drawing differ from volumetric drawing? . . .
. . . What is the gesture of one hand clapping?
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nice words!!!! I finished the video on friday and I woke up today thinking that what my approach was missing was exactly that: Gesture! I started thinking what I was doing when I drew bodies that I wasn't doing when I drew hands and that was it. I wasn't focusing on gesture, movement, rythm!! Tomorrow's video (on the channel) is of me doing quick gesture drawings of hands. Warning: I still suck. I believe I have the pieces, I don't know how to put them together yet!
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LOL. Me too. But, not to worry. Some things come together on their own, quite naturally. At best we optimize the conditions for it.
BTW- that is the premise of Kimon Nicholaides, The Natural Way to Draw, which is a training manual rather than a book on how to draw. However, accompanying each schedule is an essay about the purpose of the exercises and a bit of a preparation for what to gain from experiencing them. It was this author in this very book who coined the terms "gesture" and "gesture drawing" as we use them today in art.
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Nice!!!! I'll look into it!!! how do you know so much about all of this stuff??
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I wish I had a more articulate answer than "art is my passion." It is the only thing in my life that gave back more than I invested. Everything else drained me. Art restored me. Of course, it took half a lifetime to realize it, which may be another part of the answer.
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It's never too late! and if someone says you are too old, you can always lie on the internet 
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LOL. Yes, I know.
What I mean is that I took art for granted when I was young. It took a long time to develop a sense of its value in my life by comparing it to other fields of endeavor - science, social work, etc., so called "serious" professions.
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You don't seem to be taking it for granted now!!! So how does it feel? are you liking it as much as you thought you would?
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It fills my days. Once I went back to writing fiction and drawing life became both purposeful and enjoyable. Last year, when I took up digital art, it catapulted me into color for the first time in many years. I hadn't painted since the mid-eighties, which is when I took up painting seriously for the first time, and, at that, only briefly. Once I started working with color, I didn't stop. It made a big difference, since I'd been working only with graphite and ink for so many years. (In 2003 I gave myself 3 months to master ink! It wasn't until 2015 that I finally moved on from it, far from being its master!)
Having exposed and worked on many deficits in my art foundation, it would be nice to begin working - if not getting paid professionally, then at least on my opus. Instead, I seem to be going more deeply into the digital side of digital art, which is fascinating. I fear I may have "rapture of the deep", a kind of tech narcosis, luring me from the goal as it makes me giddy. We'll see. In the end I think close familiarity with software like Photoshop can only be good. It is probably a better qualification for jumping into commercial art and teaching than art itself - a way to get one's foot in the door, so to speak.
It was all handed to me when I was very young. Now, the competition is so thick I haven't a clue about how to get started, other than to entertain myself with daily study and practice - that is, live and breath art - and hope the example brings attention that opens a door.
I think you set a fine example, as I've said. In what you do I see the ideal in the flesh.
It was either Da Vinci or Goethe who said, effectively, that, 'Science, Religion, and Art are the three main paths of life; whom so ever chooses the latter gets the benefit of all three!' 
It is one of several posts showing a psychophysiology laboratory in which I worked.
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Digital is a whole different thing than traditional art. Many digital artists treat it like "painting on a digital canvas". You can use it that way, sure, but there is also a lot more to be explored beyond just painting, and there are results that you can only get by doing digital work. The sweet spot is not letting the tools become more important than the piece itself, or letting the effects and tools become the main focus of the piece.
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Indeed.
I found it overwhelming, at first, so, after a bit of exposure to digital techniques, I reined in the tech and got accustomed to painting directly on one layer, as if with paint on canvas. Then, after I got the hang of it, I went back to explore the tech, which is what I'm doing, again, now. I'm training with multiple layers as they do in design - one layer per element, which is to maximize editability. A simple croquis practice of ten figures takes about 70 layers. Of course, there is no good reason to "paint" this way. I only do it to practice the method. Otherwise I prefer temp layers - spread things out on layers, solve the problem, or achieve the effect, then, merge and resume on one layer.
I've also progressed with adjustment layers, learning this past week how to use a gradient map for grayscale conversion. The idea is to introduce color data into the grayscale before colorizing and, on new layers, painting over with low opacity.
I see how nimbly you use technology in your presentations. It is is something I hope to be able to do one day. As with art, it seems I am preoccupied with digital fundamentals. I start to wonder if there is anything else? LOL.
May I ask what kind of work you do? Is it freelance or do you work for an organization?
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Here: I have two blog posts that may help you. The first one is for doing values first and color later:
javicandraw.com/2015/08/color-…
And the second is for blending linework with color : javicandraw.com/2015/08/color-…
What do I do? Well, for now, I do what you see!! I stopped working a few months to focus on the videos. I was doing freelance work before. A few months ago I started looking for freelance work once again but nothing has come up yet. Maybe I'm not searching for it the right way. Wish me luck!
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Thank you very much! I am study these references. (This monkey painting IS beautiful! And it has a slick digital look.)
Haha. I once told someone that if I died today before ever getting an art-related job I would, yet, die happy, because up to that point I would have been doing what I love to do - art. (If I died the day after I got the job, I'd be really pissed, but not for long, so, after that, it wouldn't matter.)
I remember, also, feeling like a failure at one point because I didn't have a job, a matter I discussed in a dream with Joe Kubert (whom I knew). He said, "Well, you must be doing something right." And I said, "How's that?" And he answered, "You're still doing art, aren't you?" LOL. Yes. Indeed. Amen.
BTW - Read your bio while reviewing your website: You were born the year I entered the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), Philadelphia, PA.
Bon Chance. Good luck. Buena suerte! (Wish me the same, eh?)
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I would imagine that if Joe Kubert appeared in my dreams he'd slap me because I'm not drawing enough! Well, that's what I do all the time I'm not drawing. In fact, I am writing this with one hand while slapping myself with the other!
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LOL!
I don't think he'd slap you. I think he'd praise you. In fact, you should get in touch with some of the faculty at his school, like If I am not mistaken, Fabio is from Argentina - but then again, maybe Brazil? Not sure. Haven't spoken with him in a long time. It doesn't hurt to network. Also, my friend and award winning comic book creator (The Adventures of Maria Colora) might be good to know, too. He is in Columbia (Cool-umbia as he says).
Here is Said on the right with comic book legend HT at the Golden Monkey Awards And here is a link to some of tha artwork of his comic, www.deviantart.com/users/outgo…
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With your video channel you are realizing an idea I had around 2006 - and doing it much better than I could have done - with an impossible combination of clear thinking, charisma/flair and humility. I am happy to do what I can to foster your success. I am your servant . . . a grumpy, somewhat demanding and highly critical servant, who often does not know his place. Yet I hold you in high esteem and put you forward as an example for those who value my opinion.
Just understand . . . You may never get work. What employer wants you nipping at his heels, taking over his business, seducing his wife and daughters, and stealing his dog? You may just have to make it on your own. For some, win or lose, it is a blessing to experience that struggle.
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Well, hopefully one day I'll have an audience big enough where I won't have to depend on clients. For the moment I will depend on my savings and my wife though, hahaha. She is super supportive so it hasn't been a problem so far.
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The solution to all of life's problems - a good woman. (Where do they hide?)
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mine was under my nose all along! Literally under my nose, she's tiny!
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Is she an artist, too? Actress? Writer? etc? Or is she your opposite - a practical type to keep you grounded?
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Opposite! A doctor. a pharmacologyst! She loves her hard science and data. But she is just as passionate of her papers as I am of my drawings!
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Aha, Now I know why you're so goofy - black market pharmaceuticals!!! XD
Seriously, this would seem to be the foundation of an intense bond, as they say, "opposites attract." They also condition each other, which means conflict, which means the need for communication and negotiation, and, above all, flexible strength - the flexibility to entertain the other within oneself, and the strength to resist losing one's identity to the other in the process of doing that.
I wish the best for both of you. Encourage her to take up one of the creative arts, be it music, or drama, literature, etc. And for you, do the same with science, be it psychology or something like that - something related to art. Each of you should look to develop an auxiliary specialty to act as a bridge into the others "world". Likely it is already present, so the thing is to take it seriously by nurturing it.
Well, so much for marital advice from the likes of someone who's still looking for a date! LOL
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It's great advice!!!! I'll never study medicine though, lol, but I wouldn't mind physics!
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When I started to study psychology became familiar with a branch of it called Psychophysics. Aside from having a cool name, it is also a cool subject! This addresses the very core of art with respect to the nature and boundaries of perception on one hand and illusion on the other! It is the science behind the principles of art, such as we are taught in design and composition. The eye (brain) is attracted to contrast, hence silhouette provides the main information used to recognize objects - etc., Such things as we speak of when teaching art or performing critique have their origins and justifications in this branch of science.
Of course, as the name implies, there is the physics of it all, which, when it comes down to quantifying these ideas is the important part. But I never cared for the quantification part. I was fascinated with the how the subject matter tied in to art. It's handy to be able to step outside of art to do an end-run around some artsy-fartsy guy who has a big name but no real science background. It may not win an argument with him, but it will put boundaries on his "opinions"- which could prove handy at cocktail parties. XD.
Psychophysics. And if you're planning on children, Psychology in general as an auxiliary field of study could prove quite handy.
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