Drawing: Realistic Techniques Part 5

Hello everyone! For my last blog post, I decided to draw a hand. This is the last lesson in the book You Can Draw in 30 Days by Mark Kistler. In this lesson, Kistler not only gives step by step procedures on how to draw a hand, but goes over the Nine Fundamental Laws of Drawing that were taught throughout the book. I know I didn't read every single lesson in the book, and that I only have attempted 5 of the lessons, but I like how Kistler went over all the important techniques for drawing in this lesson. Kistler says "In this lesson we will pull together all of the Nine Fundamental Laws of Drawing that we have learned so far and apply them to this drawing" (Kistler 234). Kistler goes on and explains each law and how they apply to this lesson. The nine laws that he mentioned were foreshortening, placement, size, overlapping, shading, shadow, contour, horizon, and density. I believe that all these laws are important when drawing a realistic picture because they help you add depth, perspective, and more realistic features to your picture. Here is a picture of my finished drawing of a hand:

In this drawing, I used the Nine Fundamental Laws of Drawing explained in the book to help create a realistic drawing with depth and perspective. I used foreshortening because the hand is tilted away from the point of view. I used placement because I placed the fingers and the thumb in a way that helps create a realistic depth to the picture. I used size because the fingers are all relative in size to each other, and I used overlapping because some of the fingers overlap each other. I used shading because I shaded parts of the hand to give it more depth and realistic qualities, and I used shadow because I shaded the shadows between the fingers which separates each finger and also adds to the depth. I used contour because I drew wrinkle lines on the palm and fingers to add shape, volume and depth, and I used horizon because the picture is drawn at eye-level. Each technique that I used to make this drawing helped create the illusion of depth in the finished picture.

I think that I definitely improved my drawing skills this quarter and added to my knowledge and understanding of the different drawing techniques. I learned how to use these drawing techniques to create a realistic image with depth and perspective. I hope to continue using these techniques in the future and that I can continue to develop new drawing skills and build on my knowledge.

What do you think of this drawing? Is there anything I could improve on? Do you believe that the Nine Fundamental Laws of Drawing are important when making a drawing look realistic? Is there any law that you think is the most important when adding depth and perspective to the picture?


Kistler, Mark. You Can Draw in 30 Days. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2011. Print.