Hands and feet

Sketching feet. The “Human” marathon, week 5

Hands. Marathon “The Human Form”, week 4

We draw hands and talk about the old masters, stylization, the hand as a sign, the silhouettes of fingers, anatomy, and knobbly knuckles and stringy tendons! :D

How to draw the male torso and legs

A drawing lesson where we work on the male shoulder girdle, rib cage, pelvis and legs. I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to understand and draw the human figure better.

Timelapse. Drawing the bones of the foot

Hi! The astrologers, in collaboration with the fitness instructors, have declared it the month of legs 😎 And since for us artists the hardest part of the leg is the foot, we’re giving it our attention again. In this timelapse I show how to draw the bones of the foot step by step — it’s important to understand how it’s all put together in order to depict legs convincingly. Draw along with me, and be sure to watch last week’s video lesson on feet!

Drawing feet

Hi! In the video lesson I first break down the anatomy of the foot and then draw it from different angles — watch, follow along, and if you still have questions on the topic, write them in the comments 🙂✨

Anatomy of the hand

An update to the post 😉 Hi, friends! Thank you for your attention to my blog and for your support 🙏

Knees

Hi everyone! I’ve recorded a video lesson for you on a burning topic — drawing the knee joint. Students learning to draw the figure very often run into trouble with exactly this. In the video I explain in detail and show clearly the construction of the knee in the two main positions of the leg — straight and bent. The lesson will be useful for everyone, including more experienced artists. Wishing you great drawings, and knees that don’t ache, because this is also one of the most vulnerable parts of the human body 😆

Drawing limbs from different angles

Hi everyone! This month, instead of a second timelapse, I’m sharing three video lessons with you. Also an announcement: the stream with feedback on your July work will definitely happen, but later. Most likely in mid-August. Right now I’m up to my ears in preparing for the intensives, which, by the way, start tomorrow! , but it will run from August 7 to 12, because I can’t be in two places at once 😎 I’m looking forward to the sessions and to seeing you, it’s going to be great! In the previous lessons we drew the legs and arms of a full-figured person. As I’ve said before, if you haven’t drawn limbs before, it’s better to start with simpler body types — so here are some videos to practice with. Video lesson 1. Female legs from the front Video lesson 2. Female legs from the back Video lesson 3. Arms. Upper arms, forearms, hands Thank you for your support, and in return I’m sending everyone beams of support and motivation to draw!

The arms of a heavy-set person

Hi, friends! I’m continuing the series of video lessons on drawing the limbs of people with plenty of soft tissue on them. Lately I’ve enjoyed working with interesting forms that have something of Kustodiev’s shapes about them.

The legs of a heavy-set person

Hi! Today’s video lesson is about drawing legs with plenty of soft tissue or fat on them. It’s important for an artist to work with different body types in order to build up the skill. Everything is interesting to us — the forms, the silhouettes, the beautiful way the folds flow into each other. In the video I talk about what’s specific to drawing legs like these, and show the drawing process. If you haven’t drawn legs yet, I recommend watching the other videos first, sketching from them, and then coming back to this lesson. Good luck exploring different body types! ✨

Stylizing hands

Hi! In this video lesson we’ll go through the principles and techniques of stylization — using a single hand I’ll show different styles and talk about my approach to style through simplification and finding the essential shape. What is stylization even for? Stylization is used in every field — animation, comics, illustration, realistic painting — and each field has its own look. And here’s some seriously great news: in August I’ll be running an intensive on the Human Figure in Motion in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The intensive is six days of serious skill-building and dozens of great sketches!

Timelapse. Stylized hands

Hi! We’re still on hands — turns out it’s the most requested subject from my subscribers. Today I’m showing how I draw stylized hands, and in the next video lesson I’ll talk it through. Draw along with me, share your results, and tell me in the comments: how much trouble do hands give you? 😎

Timelapse. Constructing a fist!

Hi everyone! You keep asking for video lessons on drawing limbs. Been waiting? Here you go! 😎 The first timelapse of this month is about drawing a fist through construction. With a fist it makes sense to start from the silhouette, and then fit smaller silhouettes inside that bold, readable shape — the phalanges of the fingers and the pads of the palm — gradually working out the construction. I recommend starting with a copy, and then trying to draw your own fist from life — that will lock the material in and give you a "portrait" of your own hand. Good luck!

Timelapse. Six ways to draw a hand

Hi! There’s one important thing about drawing hands — they’re very hard to draw until you’ve drawn them many times over. So that you can understand the form better and remember the main directions of the volumes, I decided to show six different ways of drawing a hand: linear-skeletal; anatomical, with the muscles strongly called out; construction-based; chain-like, showing the main directions of the masses; the method using cross-sections; and simple modeling of the form. The more we draw and study the hand, and from more different angles, the easier it will be to draw later on. So go for it! :)

Timelapse. Drawing feet

Hi! And here’s a bright timelapse of drawing feet. I like to experiment and look for a fresh sound. With these feet it turned out that working up the detailed drawing turned into painting. A small tip: when you work with color, switch the line art off, because its contrast pulls attention and throws your perception off in color work like this. Switch it off, lay the color in, look at how the color reads, then switch it back on. One more tip, probably the most important one, which helped me enormously back in the day: separate neighboring masses by value — it makes the silhouettes more interesting and keeps everything from merging into one unreadable heap. Separate the pad of the big toe from the phalanx next to it, the phalanx from the metatarsus, and so on.

The hand in motion

Hi! We start with thumbnails, pick an interesting angle and arrangement of the fingers, and off we go, on to finishing the sketch. Don’t forget to turn the sound on so you can hear my commentary. I go through the structure of the hand in detail, explain how you can simplify the hand down to boxes in order to build it properly, and show how to render the volume of each finger so that the hands look alive and convincing. Thanks for the support, and see you soon on the live stream!

A bold timelapse. Drawing the hand

Hi! By popular request, I’m bringing the hand video lesson back out of the archive. First we’ll study its structure and proportions in detail, then take it apart bone by bone — what attaches to what, how it’s built, how it interacts, bends and straightens. The hand is like a fascinating construction kit where every part has its purpose. Once you get the general logic, working from references, from life or from imagination gets much easier: you’ll catch the movement and dynamics of the hands right away and get them into your work. And as a bonus, here’s a bold timelapse of drawing a hand. Has a therapeutic effect and never goes out of season :) Thanks for your attention and support!

Studying the structure of the foot and drawing it in three-quarter view

Hi everyone! So here you are: two archive lessons at once — the structure of the foot, and the human foot in three-quarter view from the outside. First we’ll sort out the different silhouettes of the foot and study its structure and bones, where they sit and how they interact. Then we’ll draw the foot, emphasizing the main breaks in the form and gradually refining the details. I know that drawing feet is difficult for a lot of people. Tell me, what’s hardest to understand and to draw? The basic construction, building the toes, maybe the flow of the forms, or the angles? And does more of it click after you watch the video lessons?