I am intrigued by figure drawing and try to attend a figure drawing session in my building several times a month. Drawing hands has been one area that has frustrated me. When my upstairs studio neighbor, talented portrait artist Suzi Zefting Kuhn, offered a one-day class in her studio recently to “demystify” and draw the human hand, I knew I wanted to attend.
We met in the Rochester Art Club gallery space on the fourth floor of the Hungerford Building, where I have my own studio on the third floor. Suzi offered the class the choice of working from photographic images that she had selected or from a plaster cast. Since I had never tried drawing from a plaster cast and it is already three dimensional, I chose that for my reference.
My perspective on the plaster cast from where I sat.
Suzi, our teacher, is standing at the right. Pat Tribastone, left, who works in oil and pastel and creates beautiful still life oil paintings, has a studio two doors down from mine.
At the end of the day, the class members displayed their drawings. Each one of us gained greater understanding of the hand’s anatomy and how to simplify and draw its shapes. Can you guess which drawing is mine???
There will be more drawing classes in my future. It truly heightened my sense of observation as well as offered me the opportunity to appreciate and learn from a wide variety of drawing styles.
Here’s my first drawing of a plaster cast hand! I kept wondering why it seemed so stiff and expressionless and then I realized – it’s a plaster cast!! It doesn’t HAVE any expressiveness. Next time I’ll work from a real one or a photo!!
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