Teach Yourself Visually Drawing

The Planes of the Hand.

Up to this point, you have learned

how to accurately draw different types

of forms. To draw a human hand, you

would also apply the same methods of

measuring, including using the grid

mentioned in Chapter 8. This method

will show that the hand is also a series

of shapes, just like other forms. You

can use your own hand in this exercise.

Study, by Dean Fisher

At first glance, a hand might seem like a very irregular-shaped object, to which it is difficult to apply a form of logic. However,
if you analyze the hand in terms of basic geometric forms, you will see that the palm and base of a hand can be thought of as
a couple of rectangular blocks, and the fingers as more elongated rectangular blocks with joints. After the big planes of the
hand are added to this drawing, you can get a feeling for the geometry of the hand. For more discussion on the human hand,
refer to page 233.