posted
This is the second time I've drawn this particular... thing. I personally think the first one was better, but it was on notebook paper and given as a gift to my dad(this was a few years ago). I'm trying to improve my drawing... hands have always been my "thing," I guess. Anyway, this is religious themed and possibly offensive(it's the crucified hand of Christ). Please, PLEASE critique.
There's no variation in dark and light values so the hand looks more flat than 3d. Try putting your own hand under a single light source, and look at all the little shadows and shades that make up the forms of the muscles underneath the skin etc.
However if you're going for a more graphic look...
EDIT: Minor but...didn't the nails go into the palms?
Posts: 1236 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
The emotional strength of this work comes mainly from the nail sticking through the hand. I think the hand itself could use a lot more toning and definition. The work is very small in scope as well which is neither good nor bad, just limiting.
The board on which the hand is nailed is not straight which is probably bad.
Not much more to say, really. It's good for what it is supposed to do. This by Van Gogh (supposedly) , however, doesn't really impress me that much either, so clearly hands aren't that easy and aren't really much in isolation.
Picasso, though, of course, made great great hands, but in a non-literal sense.
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posted
Measuring instruments, ship joining, and EXPENSIVE furniture are the only places ya'd find a straight board in a world without cheap high-grade steel. A straight board remained uncommon until after power tools became available.
If the intent was to crucify someone, I doubt that anybody would have bothered to handcraft a high-quality cross for the event.
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posted
The angle of the arm is a little weird-- like he's almost hanging straight down. I thought the detail of the board was nice, but it looks too much like a flat board that you'd find in any Lowe's or Home Depot.
The blood coming from the wound needs definition-- right now, it looks like you just made some black marks, erased them, drew them in again and made them longer.
The perspective work on the fingers is really nice, IMO.
posted
"The angle of the arm...like he's almost hanging straight down..."
...is the correct depiction: all of the force of weight is down. That's how people died.
This type of imagery is total nonsense. Even if the person were tied into that position upon a cross laying on the ground, after the cross was tilted to stand vertically, the body would soon sag downward&out and the arms would end up a V-position. Check out how long you can hold your body in an IronCross. In top gymnasts, the answer is seconds. Basicly, each breath the victim took required that the victim pull himself up&in by his arms to allow his breathing muscles to fill the lungs. Eventually the victim's arm muscles would no longer be able to accomplish that task. Very soon afterwards, the breathing muscles would no longer be able to draw air into the lungs, and the victim would suffocate.
Tying the feet to the board was just an additional cruelty. Allowing the legs to take up part of the load just meant that it took longer for the arms to wear out.
Nailing would have been extremely uncommon: mostly because nails were expensive to make and hard to pull out. Even during the early pioneering days of the US, soon-to-be-deserted cabins were routinely burned so that the nails could be recovered from the ashes.
posted
Thank you all for the critique, I really appreciate it.
The nail is through the wrist for a fairly simple reason, actually. I had read somewhere that the bones in the hand, if nailed through the palm, could NOT support the weight of the body. The bones of the forearm, however, could- so the thought that the nail went through Christ's palm is physically impossible, unless he had some serious calcium intake in his lifetime.
The piece is shaded, however, I don't really understand how to work my scanner, so I couldn't get it to pick up that level of detail.
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quote:The piece is shaded, however, I don't really understand how to work my scanner, so I couldn't get it to pick up that level of detail.
It's like we're walking down the same road!
My problem is 1) I can't draw, 2) I can't get my line work clean enough for a good scan. So I have to go back with Photoshop and clean up for hours and hours...
Adding color to the line drawings takes care of a lot of the eraser marks...but it takes FOREVER, and I was too lazy to do it this last time.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:The nail is through the wrist for a fairly simple reason, actually. I had read somewhere that the bones in the hand, if nailed through the palm, could NOT support the weight of the body. The bones of the forearm, however, could- so the thought that the nail went through Christ's palm is physically impossible, unless he had some serious calcium intake in his lifetime.
Consider the possibility that perhaps the romans placed nails in his palms AND in his wrists. It was not unheard of at all to do so in the effort to secure the prisoner to the cross.
I know traditionally Christ is shown with one pair of nails in his hands and one in his feet, and while that is aethestically pleasing, I don't think trying the two nails per hand approach is without merit.
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quote:Originally posted by aspectre: This type of imagery[/URL] is total nonsense. Even if the person were tied into that position upon a cross laying on the ground, after the cross was tilted to stand vertically, the body would soon sag downward&out and the arms would end up a V-position. Check out how long you can hold your body in an IronCross. In top gymnasts, the answer is seconds.
If the wrists or hands were rigidly fixed in place, the body couldn't sag forward or downward any significant amount without dislocating joints. The would likely happen if the weight of the body were supported only by the arms, which is not reported to be the case. The fact that top gymnasts can only hold an Iron Cross position for a few seconds is irrelevant if the feet are supported.
Nails were likely not that uncommon. Iron tools were after all one of the key strengths of the Roman army. And if the did have Iron, I'm pretty sure a good wooden spike could have worked.
I've read a couple of interesting scholarly articles of crusifixtion and the bottom line is that very little is known about it. There is very little recorded about it in the historical records. Most of what is claimed about it, can not be confirmed in experiments. Most of what is reported is purely speculative so it doesn't make much sense to worry about whether the drawing has some sort of scientific or historic accuracy. The point of such a drawing to cause people to reflect on the Jesus' sacrifice. If it achieves this, then phyical accuracy is irrelevant.
During my tours of Europe, I've studied a fair number of paintings and sculptures of the crucifixtion. Jesus is frequently represented with nails in the palms of his hands, nails in his wrists, two nails in the feet or one nail through both feet. Nails in both the hands and the wrists is also done occasionally. The position of the arms varies from perpendicular to the body to nearly vertical. On rare occasion, Jesus is depicted with his hands together directly over his head.
Pick any position you can concievable imagine and I'm pretty confident someone has painted, drawn or sculptured Jesus in that position.
Don't worry about drawing the hand in a way that somehow portrays the crucifiction in a scienticalls accurate manner. There is no agreement on what that would be anyway. Choose the details of your drawing so that they bring to mind some aspect of Jesus' sacrifice that is meaningful to you spiritually.
[ July 30, 2007, 12:19 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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posted
I like the way you've have drawn the fingers bending anyward. Its clearly not a relaxed hand. I get the impression you are trying to capture the way the hand would be held for someone who was deeply stressed, cringing in pain.
The palm of the hand however doesn't show the right shape for a stressed hand. If I look at my and gently curly my fingers inward, it looks quite a bit like the hand you've drawn but its not a position I would ever hold my hand. If I push a finger nail into my wrist to cause pain, my fingers do curl inward but the shape of my palm is very different. Trying studying how the lines on your palm and the shape of your fingers change if your hand is in a stressed position and then try to replicate that in your drawing.
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posted
Put 2"X4" flush with the wall, then stand on it with your heels touching the wall. (If your heels are still touching the floor molding, use a 4"X4") Due to the location of the body's center of gravity, you fall forward; unless there's something on the wall you can hold on to. Any forward lean also adds a downward force. So the force of weight upon tied arms is still down&out.
Like I said, tying the feet was just another form of cruelty that extended the suffering.
If crucifiers gave the cross a backwards lean or a wide platform to stand upon (not common), each bending of the knees put down&out stress upon the arms. Then suffocation occurred when the legs gave out, when the arms couldn't pull the victim back so that the balance was no longer forward across the body's centerline, or when the victim failed to stay awake even though buckling legs would cause excruciating pain in the arm and shoulder joints.
As far as recent "experiment"s, the CIA suffocated a captive during interrogation in Afghanistan using a DubyaAdministration-approved "stress position" which, though different, mimics the effects of crucifixion.
posted
I'd heard that nails went through the wrist not only because the palm wouldn't be able to support it, but it was slightly more painful, lots of nerves being gathered there.
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posted
Iron makes lousy nails. You can shatter a cast iron pipe easily with a steel hammer; don't even hafta take a full swing. And iron is too soft to use as a prybar. Steel durable enough to use as a spike was rather expensive before the IndustrialRevolution.
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posted
Iorn isn't soft. It's so hard it's brittle. There's a difference. Part of steel's reliability is its resilience. I mean that literally and not figuratively.
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posted
Yeah, you're right; though iron is still softer than steels. I misused "soft" when I meant 'weak'.
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posted
It's just.. not good. It has no depth. Looks to me like a rough sketch of something you plan to do, rather than a finished piece. The angle should be changed. Rather than have it straight on, have it looking down on the hand, or up at it, or at least slightly off so the cross isn't just a rectangle.
Posts: 1287 | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
First of all, I like your drawing. You did a good job with the perspective of the hand. I could tell the scan wasn't that great, some scanners just aren't that good. You can try playing with the settings, Make sure it is on grayscale and not black and white.
Drawing hands is one of the biggest challenges for artist. The human hand is one of the more complicated parts of the body (externally). Next to the face they are really one of the most expressive uniquely human parts of the body. I believe there are something like 27 bones in each hand, this can create a lot different challenges. If you study art history you will find most artist study the hands and practice drawing them again and again. If you want to see some great look at Michelangelo. Sorry just the first drawing I could find. The point is it takes a lot of time and practice to get really good at drawing hands. Even the masters had to put in the study time for each painting to get it right. You're off to a good start keep working at it. Posts: 555 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by aspectre: Iron makes lousy nails. You can shatter a cast iron pipe easily with a steel hammer; don't even hafta take a full swing. And iron is too soft to use as a prybar. Steel durable enough to use as a spike was rather expensive before the IndustrialRevolution.
Cast Iron is brittle bough wrought iron is not. Wrought Iron swords, although much softer the steel, were relatively cheap and plentiful in Rome and were in fact the standard weapon of the Roman Soldier. Wrought Iron can also be used to make nails strong enough.
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