Before you start drawing a hand, make sure you pick an interesting gesture. Try to experiment a lot at this point. A well-drawn gesture can communicate more than 100 words.

Using the faint underdrawing as a guide, redraw the hand from observation in 3B pencil. As you draw, use the negative spaces to check the proportion of your evolving image.

Albrecht Dürer’s Praying Hands (1508) was not, as has been assumed for centuries, a preparatory drawing for a painted altarpiece, but a finished work made as an advertisement for the master’s ...