Library Books
Human Body - Dorling Kindersley
I took this children's human body book out of the library to help give me a better understanding of what it is I will be photographing and drawing, the hand. It also made me think about lines as in veins and muscles inside the hands as well as lines on the skin.
Hand to Eye, Contemporary Illustration - Laurence King
I chose this book because I would like to produce contemporary style illustrations of hands. Hand drawn images, where the computer has been used as a tool but does not dictate the image, relate to my theme of hands. I have scanned in my favourite line drawing images from the book, as not only does this style look good, and I think it is achievable, but it relates to the question of 'what is a line' in another way. I think line drawings are the best style for what I am aiming to achieve, as the lines in the palm of the hand are the most important thing in this brief that I have written for myself, and other aspects of illustration such as colour or shading aren't important. I think a difference in thickness and size of the lines, as seen in the first image, would be a good technique to separate the important lines on the hand regarding to palm reading.
Lucinda Rogers - Ben Freedman, Orchard Street & Portrait
Nina Chakrabarti - Hell is... Deanne Cheuk - Rainbow Girls
Jo Ratcliffe - Portrait Lizzie Finn - 150 B&T
Lizzie Finn - Image for Vogue
Lizzie Finn has created lines through sewing, and I think this is a good way of showing that drawing isn't just about drawing with a pen or pencil, but there are other ways of creating a line. I haven't written about trying other techniques in my brief, but after seeing these examples, I am inspired to try something a little different.
Hands, A Journey Around the World - Thames & Hudson
I chose this book because I thought it was fascinating to see so many different pairs of hands, with different occupations, from all over the world. There is also an interesting foreword by Michael Palin, which relates to some of the ideas about hands that I want to get across through my final piece. I have included some quotes that I think are paticularly relevant to how I feel about hands.
"Hands raised in gesture when language fails."
"Our hands give away more than our eyes ever could."
"Hands tell stories, reveal clues and often intimate details of how we live and what we do."
"These photographs focus our all to brief attention span onto a fascinating area of human expression."
"In the West we worship the face... By choosing to concentrate on hands Basil Pao is celebrating those less glamorous but brilliantly complex tools whose use and development have made man so much more successful than any other race of living creatures."
"Amongst these images there are some graphic contrasts which prove how much drama there can be in a simple pair of hands. The immaculately manicured hands of a geisha in Kyoto say everything about her world, in the same way as the mutilated fingers of an Australian Crocodile farmer say everything about his."
"Basil Pao concentrates on hands as sources of beauty, grace and skill. He's a romantic too, using hands as a metaphor for human potential, and also of liberty and individuality."
"Hands, often taken for granted, can be as versatile and expressive as faces."
The Photo Book - Phaidon
I don't know that much about photography but it is something I would like to learn more about in this brief by experimenting with different types of analogue cameras. I chose this book as it is quite general, as I'm not completely sure what I'm looking for right now. I've scanned in mainly black and white photographs, as I was thinking that I will take black and white photographs, as they will be easier to draw from, and also because the lines in the hands are the most important part of the photographs, not the colour. I prefer the photographs from analogue cameras rather than digital ones, as I think they have a better quality when printed.
I have looked at a variety of images, most of them are fairly old. I have chosen the photographs for different reasons, such as some being slightly blurry or the scene looking spontaneous.
Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz - Self-portrait with Lamp (1913)
Michael Wells - Hands (1951)
Ugandan child's hand in missionary. This photograph is an example of how hands can tell a story, this time one of famine.
Andy Warhol - Self portrait II (1986)
Zdenek Tmej - Czech Man Called up for Work... (1943)
Umbo - Rut Landshoff (1927)
Lutfi Ozkok - Portrait of Samuel Beckett (1966)
Edward Steichen - Rodin - Le Penseur (1902)
Erich Salomon - Diplomats (1931)
Charles Negre - Chimney Sweeps Walking (1851)
William Klein - Dance in Brooklyn (1954)
Carl De Keyzer - Bombay (1985)
Emmet Gowin - Edith and Berry Necklace (1971)
Franz Hubmann - Alberto Giacometti (1951)
So close, every line and wrinkle is picked up.
Adam Fuss - Lovers (1985)
Pin hole camera results in distortion, the process blends the figures with their spaces - not conventional or corrected.
Recommended Artists
Pinhole photography
Camera Research
I looked into different lomography cameras to see which one would suit what I am trying to achieve the best. Inspired by the photographs I have already researched, as well as the examples on the website for the camera, I decided that a fisheye camera would be the best. This is something completely new to me but I am hoping it will provide me with exciting images to draw from.
Fisheye examples from lomography website:
Drawing Hands & Feet - Giovanni Civardi
Palm Reading
Information from Best Online Psychics
Palmistry is a form of divination that uses the lines, shapes and patterns of the hand to make predictions about an individual’s past, present and future. The primary theory behind palm reading is that the hand contains information about an individual’s personality, their physical body, and the significant events that occur throughout their lifetime.
It is believed that palm reading originated in China over 3000 years ago. In Europe palm reading was used as a method of fortunetelling by the gypsies and later became popularized in the late 19th century during the spiritualism movement. There is a debate over the efficacy of palm reading as some believe it is predictive of the future while others believe that it is merely a reflection of an individual’s personality.
Life Drawing Artists
I looked at these abstract life drawing images where line is very important, some of them I had previously researched during a life drawing course, to help inspire my experimental hand drawings.
Henri Matisse
Picasso
David Schoffman
