Right hand

Today I revisited the drawing of the hand. It was one of my first subjects when I began my early attempts to learn to draw. I thought perhaps it would be easy this time, but it still had many challenges for me. The subtle differences in value were more important than I remembered. I became frustrated as the time went by and the drawing seemed to show little of the third dimension, no matter how I tried to improve it. At one point I was ready to give up and start over. Then the addition, or rather the subtraction from the drawing with an eraser, created the small light line of the crease between the thumb and index finger and it began to have a bit of life. I suddenly became more satisfied with the sketch.

My intentions were not to create a perfect likeness but to create a sketch that suggested the form in three dimensions - and to sketch it in a reasonable amount of time. So in the end, I came to a point of having to make a decision. I could start over, or continue to try to improve the drawing. What really helped was to take a short break and get away from it for a while. Then continuing with this sketch seemed to at least be moving forward so I stuck with this. And in the end I was just one line away from turning the corner. I hope one day I will be able to see more quickly how close I am to the turning point, and where that one line needs to go.