Sunday Sketching from Life

Yesterday I found a feather in the back yard and wanted to render it in graphite.

I decided the drawing would be a self-portrait of my hand holding the feather. Since I am left-handed, it was easiest to hold up my right hand about ten inches from my face and draw what I saw. To render the feather, I attached it to a binder clip and placed it on top of a thread spool on my work table. The tricky part was drawing each part in the same scale, so that it would look life-like.

This didn’t take too long to draw. During the process, I began to appreciate how tricky it is to make a drawing of a hand. I had to keep adjusting the alignment of my fingers as I worked. I wondered if I should include a cast shadow. Ultimately, I couldn’t figure out where to draw the shadow, since I was holding the feather up and away from all surfaces, so left it out.

Maybe I can convince someone to model for me so I can make a sketch of two hands.