Drawn to Life - Volume 2

23 Hands (Those Darned?)

In Chapter 21 I dealt briefly with a problem area, the neck. The neck, being a very visible and expressive part of the body, should be drawn with the finesse it deserves. There is another seemingly insignificant area that too often, in the evening Gesture Classes, is just sloughed off as not worthy of further consideration. Let me remind you that the hands are second only to the tongue in communication. The tongue and facial expression are almost always backed up by the hands for extra emphasis. We have all seen actors use hands alone to express ideas and emotions.

It’s tempting to say that hands have a personality all their own, but actually the hand is just the outer extremity of the composite personality of the character. ...