My Hand

Few things are as challenging as drawing human hands. They are so complex architecturally and so dynamic - the slightest shift in one part can alter the whole. This is my own hand, drawn from life not a photograph.

I don't have an objection to drawing from photographs. Some work is too difficult to completely reject it as a tool. When I do use photographs I try to refer back to the real subject. Drawing from life is more challenging, of course, because of the shifting problem. I tend to believe that it is exactly this problem, or rather the resolution of this problem, that the life drawing feels more alive. A photograph captures the object and holds it unnaturally in that moment. The realist artist works to incorporate the ever changing scene into a balanced and believable view. There remains, however, a sense that there has been time spent and the nuance of each moment noted. The relationship is simply more developed.