Forum posts by Kim

It jumped out at me on the second to last drawing that the palm is out of proportion to where you've put the fingers. If you hold your hands out in front of yourself, palms facing away from you, and make an L shape with your pointer and thumb, you will see clearly that the pointer is at the very edge of your hand. If you fold your thumbs in toward your palm, hiding them from your view, this becomes even more apparent -- the hand becomes essentially a square that is then almost the very same width as your four fingers are when pressed together.

If you hold your thumb out straight again, note the flap of skin that connects the side of your hand to the inside of your thumb. This can create the impression of the hand being wider, but really, the bones and the muscles are mostly all in alignment with the fingers.

On your pinky side, there's a very slight curve outward of the hand from wrist to the outer edge of your pinky's base, which keeps it from being a perfect rectangle, but again, this difference is slight. Hope that helps as something to think about when drawing!

That is okay, you are still really early in your learning process. Still looks like you're on the right track. Keep it up! :D

It looks like there's two Joshua's, and some of your posts got mixed up during the transfer. I'll work on straightening that out! :)

Update: Should be all fixed now! :)

You are so welcome! Thank you for saying so, and I will definitely check out your challenge progress. :D

Known issues
* Some older browsers still show the "black screen bug," despite previous improvements. For now, the work-around is to use a different browser.

Released fixes
* Using the "previous" button while paused can result in the timer going too fast when resumed. PATCH RELEASED - 6/21/2018
* If you click pause, then use the forward or back buttons, the countdown timer starts and the pause button will no longer work. FIXED - 5/21/2018
* Mobile devices tend to go to sleep while you're using the tools. FIXED - 5/21/2018
* Reduced the frequency of the top back bar growing to be two lines tall on smartphones in portrait rotation. - 5/21/2018
* "Register" link on login stand-alone page only served to reload the login page. FIXED - PATCH RELEASED 5/20/2018
* Class mode is utilizing 30 seconds for all portions of class. FIXED - PATCH RELEASED 5/19/2018
* Black bar does not extend to bottom of timer if there is no credit for the image available. FIXED - PATCH RELEASED 5/19/2018
* iPad and Safari do not correctly resize images. POTENTIALLY FIXED (waiting for user confirmations) PATCH RELEASED 05/19/2018
* Make pause dialogue less disruptive. FINISHED - PATCH RELEASED 05/19/2018
* Break messages need to be updated to include the exact recommended break length, instead of just showing it in the "time left" timer. FINISHED - PATCH RELEASED 05/19/2018
* Break messages should not advance the photos. FINISHED - PATCH RELEASED 05/19/2018
* In the animals section when you click “Only show live animals” it says no images fit this criteria. FIXED - PATCH RELEASED 05/19/2018
* Better image pre-loading. FINISHED - PATCH RELEASED 05/19/2018
* "All but insects" option is temporarily not available in the animal drawing tool FIXED - PATCH RELEASED 05/19/2018
* Some versions of Internet Explorer do not display images in the drawing tools. FINISHED - PATCH RELEASED 01/12/2017

I'll update this topic frequently as things unfold and new issues are reported.

Last updated 5/21/2018

You seem to be heavily focused on the silhouettes that the figure makes, which is a fine thing to practice, but I wonder if you also practice marking where the spine, ribcage, and hipbones are at other times? That can be very useful for learning WHY you're seeing the silhouette you are, and being able to draw more effectively from memory later.

These look just fine for early gesture drawings. I can tell you're in a bit of a rush, but that's pretty normal.

I notice that often, your torso and hip circles are butting up against one another. One thing to start to think about is that the ribs and the hipbones don't usually touch one another.

They are these big rigid structures in the body, that can't really change shape (although they might look different from different angles.)

But then there's this squishy section right around the belly button where you've got spine, but otherwise, no big, wrap-around bones that keep that part of the body the same shape - so that area can stretch and squish and seem to get longer/shorter in ways that the ribcage and the hipbones just can't.

So my practice suggestion is, keep that in mind, and try to make your circles for the pelvis and the torso reflective of where the ribcage is and where the hipbones are, minding the gap in between. This will help you to start understanding the underlying anatomy of the body a little bit better, and what the structures are under the skin that govern all the shapes the body can make.

I look forward to seeing your progress over the next few weeks!

Looking at your longer hand drawings at the bottom of this page, and comparing to the ones that you showed me only two days ago, there is a dramatic difference. Please keep up with this practice, it is clearly benefiting you! :D

Yes, those can be especially challenging! If you have too many hands in the picture and only 30 seconds and you feel it would be too much to do a two line (arm and hand) gesture for each, feel free to pick just one of the hands for now. There's nothing saying you have to include every single hand in the frame! So long as you are challenging yourself enough to grow (which will mean being frustrated and failing about half the time), but not so much that you are frustrated and unable to move forward, you're in a good place for learning.

Hi Mifata! So glad you are enjoying these tools. :) Examples of what short hand/feet gestures could look like is definitely something I'd like to add to our article library in the very near future, as you are not alone at all in wondering how to do short gestures with hands.

Here's what I told someone else just the other day in another thread, who had a similar dilemma:

If what you have is 30 seconds to work with, try to get down a single line at first, that captures the main motion of the hand. If you have more time left, maybe try to capture the angle of the palm to the wrist, the index finger to the pointer finger, all with single strokes. You will never be able to capture more detail or shading at this pace, so don’t worry about it. Your mission is much simpler. Let your mind take in not the details of what you’re seeing, but how the whole of the hand works together to make an impression of grace or tension or anger or striving. You can see this in a split second impression, without have to study the details of shadow or wrinkles in skin.

If you have 60 seconds to work with, you might aim to take down a shape of some kind for the palm – a rectangle, a triangle, whatever seems to work best for the angle you’re seeing the hand at – and five lines that capture the basic relationship of the fingers to that palm shape.

If you have a whopping 120 seconds available to you, you might do what you did for the 60 seconds, but this time, put down circles to indicate where the joints are in the fingers. You might even be able to render one or two of the fingers as three different lines, capturing the subtle or sharp changes of angle where those joints you’ve identified are.

In this way, you will start to train your brain to see the lines of motion (often referred to as the lines of action) in a pose or in a hand that give it feeling or interest, start to teach it to see the pieces of the body individually, and how they seem to change shape when rotated in space, and how the joints are placed in the skeleton to articulate different poses.

Carry these lessons forward with you into longer poses, where you can spend time working on getting the details right, and you will find that you gradually have a much clearer understanding of what you’re looking at. The class modes that work you through those shorter foundation exercises/warm ups and into longer poses are great for this!

Hope this helps! :D

You're welcome! :)

If you found the gesture drawing basics series, that is probably plenty of exercises to work on and get you started. Just remember, progress comes from consistent practice. Be patient with yourself and keep at it!

Wow, huge improvement right away! I don't see a single six fingered hand, and the one in the middle right of this page that's holding a rod or some straight object stands out as a landmark in your beginning to understand how to see and record finger anatomy: http://joshuamatulin.deviantart.com/art/30-Second-Hands-Day-313-Learning-to-Draw-646411423

You seem to be on the right path. I would say hold this course for a few weeks and compare the differences before setting new goals. One thing to try during this period would be trying to measure the hand against itself. For example, how many thumb lengths are in each finger at the particular angle you're seeing? This may help you to start getting more realistically proportioned hands. Here's a video on measuring the human body against itself: https://line-of-action.com/measuring-human-against-itself/ It's meant for figure drawing rather than hand drawing, but many of the same concepts apply.

At this stage of your practice, I would say put the pen away and work in pencil entirely. You'll probably be doing a lot of erasing, and that is good, because it means you are taking in more information and figuring out how to apply it to the page.

You may also want to do a few weeks of this exercise simultaneously with your hand practice: https://line-of-action.com/master-pencil/

It will help you to do your initial underdrawing (with the basic lines and shapes) veeery lightly, the next phase of putting in detail a little darker, and the final phase of finalizing your lines and adding shading even darker.

I'd also like to add: Work in pencil rather than pen! When you find yourself confronted with a full 5 or 10 minutes to draw, start by drawing those basic strokes that capture the angles, and the shape of the palm. Look at what you got, look at the image, use your eraser to make a few quick corrections, and then draw your details right on top of that basic framework. Stuff will relate to each other much better if you've got a little map to work with before getting detailed.

HI Joshua,

I think you may have unrealistic expectations of the goal of 30 second, 60 second, or even 120 second drawings -- very few people on the planet are able to produce "nice to look at" or even "accurate" drawings of something so complex as a hand or a human form in such a short period of time. And the goal, especially at this point in your practice, is not to make a finished piece. Indeed, if you keep thinking that you should be able to, you are setting yourself up to be frustrated and feel like a failure, and probably to give up before you make progress.

Let me reassure you: Your 2 minute -or shorter- drawings can and should look like total garbage, and can still provide a learning benefit to you!

One of the biggest mistakes that artists fall prey to is this feeling that they need to jump from a blank page to a beautiful artwork right away, when in fact, many stages of drawing don't look like much. Often, you may spend 10 minutes getting one part of the body totally captured and shaded, and then 10 minutes on another part, and then realize that while each individual piece is good they are at the wrong angle to each other, or badly out of proportion, etc. I can see in the drawings you've posted that you are ending up with extra fingers, which is exactly this problem of getting sucked into trying to render the details without first understanding how those pieces fit into the larger whole.

So in that sense, the super short, frustrating exercises you're struggling with are exactly the ones you need to be doing. They exist to train your brain NOT to get sucked into the amazing details, because you simply don't have time. Instead, you have to shift your priority to finding a way to capture the whole of the pose or the hand without any details first. I'll do my best to give you some suggestions for how you can begin to do that.

If what you have is 30 seconds to work with, try to get down a single line at first, that captures the main motion of the hand. If you have more time left, maybe try to capture the angle of the palm to the wrist, the index finger to the pointer finger, all with single strokes. You will never be able to capture more detail or shading at this pace, so don't worry about it. Your mission is much simpler. Let your mind take in not the details of what you're seeing, but how the whole of the hand works together to make an impression of grace or tension or anger or striving. You can see this in a split second impression, without have to study the details of shadow or wrinkles in skin.

If you have 60 seconds to work with, you might aim to take down a shape of some kind for the palm - a rectangle, a triangle, whatever seems to work best for the angle you're seeing the hand at - and five lines that capture the basic relationship of the fingers to that palm shape.

If you have a whopping 120 seconds available to you, you might do what you did for the 60 seconds, but this time, put down circles to indicate where the joints are in the fingers. You might even be able to render one or two of the fingers as three different lines, capturing the subtle or sharp changes of angle where those joints you've identified are.

In this way, you will start to train your brain to see the lines of motion (often referred to as the lines of action) in a pose or in a hand that give it feeling or interest, start to teach it to see the pieces of the body individually, and how they seem to change shape when rotated in space, and how the joints are placed in the skeleton to articulate different poses.

Carry these lessons forward with you into longer poses, where you can spend time working on getting the details right, and you will find that you gradually have a much clearer understanding of what you're looking at. The class modes that work you through those shorter foundation exercises/warm ups and into longer poses are great for this!

In looking at the pieces you've posted, it looks like you are currently paying attention mostly or only to the outer edges of the things you're looking at, but not putting much attention toward what is going on INSIDE the hand (skeleton, muscles, flesh) to create those silhouettes in space. I'd encourage you to spend a month trying to sketch the bones and joints in a hand (you can represent them with lines and circles, no need to draw actual bones!) before you go back to drawing the visible flesh bits. You will come away with a much more powerful understanding of how hands work and are assembled.

Hope this helps!

What an excellent start and an ambitious goal! I commend you heartily. :)

My advice would be to pick a goal that is much more specific than "improve as much as possible." This is a very fuzzy and hard to measure goal, and doesn't give your brain much to focus on.

A more specific goal might be, "Use a wider range of pencil values for rendering" or "gain a deep understanding of all the joints in the toes"

You could have different goals per day, but make sure it's not as nebulous as "improve" or "improve at drawing"

Often, when you have finished your daily practice, you will review at the end and think, I really struggled with X aspect of this, or I'm not satisfied with X part of these drawings. Rephrase whatever that was as a goal, write it on a post it note, and stick it on your monitor for the next day's practice! :)