The hand is a remarkable tool, worthy of taking the time, to do some close observation by making some, detailed, hand drawing studies. If you are interested in the figure or drawing people, then it is important to study the hand in detail because it is also, an important aspect of human interaction and communication. The hands, have a great deal to say without words but through gestures, they can often convey many different meanings and are an important element, of visual communication, along with body language.

Research shows that none verbal signals, carry about five times as much impact, as the verbal channel. Hands play a significant role, in this none verbal communication, so if you are drawing studies of the figure, it is important, to have some understanding, of what the hands might have to say.

If you want to start understanding the hand, more closely, then you could place your own hand, palm down on a piece of paper and just draw around it, to start out with, now take a look at the shape without any detail.

Now you could draw your own hand again, with more detail this time, it will enable you to observe it more closely and understand the shapes, and form better.

The body of the hand or the main bulk area, is about the same length as the index finger, from the knuckle, ball and socket joint.

Notice that the index finger, is similar in size to other areas of the hand.

If you place your hand over your face with the tips of your fingers near the hair line and the part of your palm, where it connects to your wrist, at your chin, you will notice, if you look in the mirror, that your fingers start, just below your eyes. This means that the distance, from your chin to just below your eyes, is the size of the main body area, of your hand from your wrist, to the start of your fingers. Multiply this by two and you have the size of the whole hand, from the wrist to the finger tips.

Because of the fact, that there is as much information, to be noted in the hand, as there is in the rest of the human body, it is worth understanding why and also realizing, that they are often just as difficult to draw.

The hand consists of four fingers, a thumb and the main body area, being the palm.

The human body/figure, consists of two legs, with similar joints as the fingers, two arms and a head, so both have, a similar number of corresponding elements, that make both hand drawing and figure drawing, near equal in difficulty.

For further information on hand drawing, please take a look at this video, on YouTube, How to Draw a Hand (With Spoken Explanation), Mark Crilley, manga creator, of ‘Miki Falls’  presents a tutorial, on how to draw a hand, paying close attention, to getting, the general proportions right and giving another well presented, overview of the main characteristics.