Jenna Aiello - Hand Drawings

I feel that using my hand as subject matter was very unique. Many paintings and drawings don't necessarily reflect upon hands. Works that we've looked at through this course focus on works that were influenced by culture of specific periods of time. They have a certain relevance to that period. Hands however, are the creators of this work. Ironically, they're never portrayed physically through work, they're however creating the work. Hands are definitely a very significant part of our bodies to reflect upon, as we use them in almost everything we do in our daily lives. 

I chose to use pencil for this activity. Pencil is a very forgiving material to use. Charcoal adds more dramatic affects to your work. Depending on it's hardness, it can come off as too dark and not subtle enough. The same goes with the hardness of your pencil as well but the lead is less dramatic. I had also use charcoal in a previous activity, the color contrast activity, so switching up the media was better. I was honestly getting very frustrated using my non-dominant hand for part of the drawing. It's so easy to create anything you want with your dominant hand. We're accustomed to using it without thinking of how easy it is compared to using our non-dominant hands. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be though. I have written with my non-dominant hand before when I broke my dominant arm, so it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. The final drawings came out surprisingly well.  I am happy with the results and you can't see many extreme differences between the two drawings. The strokes and lines in the drawing done with the dominant hand are more precise and accurate compared to the other, but you can at least tell the drawing of the non-dominant hand is an actual hand! I think this turned out to be a successful study. What I got from this was that drawing is more of what's in your mind compared to accurately drawing something. What I mean by that is, you draw what you see of course but the hand you use isn't affected by its dominance. The lines will be the same, maybe have some differences, but you're drawing based on what you see not how accurate the lines you make are. Which hand you use doesn't have an extreme difference aside from becoming adjusted to it's movement. It's how you perceive the object you're drawing that can make a difference.

I would consider using my non-dominant hand for work in the future. It provides me with a challenge and I would be surprised at how the final work came out.