I am guessing that you have become more aware of your hands and what they touch in the last few weeks.

Image by Manuel Darío Fuentes Hernández from Pixabay

Hands are always with us, so often they can be the subject of drawing assignments in school.

This is a hand drawing that I did in art class.

Hands can be intimidating too. They are complex and ever moving. Plus you need at least one hand to draw with and the other to pose.

I offer you this drawing challenge to you:

1. Get a pen and paper
2. Move and model your hand into different positions
3. Do a loose line drawing of your hand
4. ahhh, pause, breath
5. Were you focused on the lines, wrinkles, and shapes of your hand?
6. Repeat – Enjoy

The goal of the drawing is not perfection or even realism.

If you are new to drawing your hand, then the goal is to slow down and start to see the 3 dimensional hand. And to begin to train your eyes and drawing hand to work together to flatten the 3-D to 2-D on paper.

I actually like my wobbly, imperfect drawings. Somehow they feel “real” to me.

I hope you give it a try.

If you would like to explore more about line drawing and then using those drawings to make trace monoprints, then check out the upcoming online class, SEE, draw, Print. It starts April 17th, 2020.

As artists we choose what to include and exclude the the work that we create. It is our own selective vision. Our perspective is our gift.

I offer a challenge to you.

Use your window as a framing device. You could start the challenge by just drawing the window frame. This type of focused drawing will pull you into the present moment and you may even become peacefully lost in noticing the details of the window.

• Keep it easy and fun
• Embrace your style of line drawing
• Look at the window frame constantly as you sketch

Then you might notice what is outside the window. It could be simple or more chaotic.

It could be:

• other buildings
• landscape, sea or lake
• trees, birds or people

Notice what you tend to focus on.

Do you take it all in? Or do you look at one element? For example in the rather boring and chaotic view from my window, I chose to take a few minutes and draw the tree in the lower right hand corner.

I enlarged the drawing and used it as a template to cut out a tree for a collage project.

Have fun with this “Out the Window” idea.

• Pause and see
• Frame and capture
• Complete and share

Enjoy!