Drawing & Painting Hands & Feet

"Hands and feet are not difficult," counsels Robert E. Fairley, author of Drawing and Painting Hands and Feet, "but they do require acute observation and thinking. If you follow the exercises in this book your skills will improve, and you will start to think about your work in a fresh way." Fairley begins by exploring the structure and anatomy of hands and feet, and offers several exercises for understanding muscles in movement. The next section is composed entirely of exercises in drawing hands and feet. The author employs a refreshingly wide array of media, including charcoal and graphite, ink, silverpoint, and pastels. Several of the exercises are composed using one's own hands and feet as models. Fairley's passion for his subject comes alive in these simple exercises as he stresses and masterfully illustrates the inherent energy and expressiveness of hands and feet in movement and repose. He ends the book by exploring how to incorporate hands and feet in a natural way into one's painting, and shows his works in acrylic, watercolor, and oil by way of illustration. --Mary Ribesky