Art-a-Day Challenge, DAY 4

My non-dominant hand - that's what I had to draw today. 

Thought this was pretty easy as I've always liked sketching hands of people that catch my interest. As a teenager, I always carried around a sketch pad and, while travelling to Goa I'd spend time sketching hands of my fellow passengers.

There was this one little Bengali girl of around 4 yrs, Shruti, who very patiently held still while I sketched her hand. That was a commendable feat for her since she was one happy bunting of a girl. She kept prattling on and on in Bengali while her mother read a magazine. I remember, back then, I had a little cow-bell hanging around the strap of my shoulder-bag, and every time I moved the bag, the bell would tinkle gaily, causing little Shruti to look around for the source of the sound. This happened each and every time I moved the bag. Finally, after having my fill of seeing the tot searching frantically for the bell, I lifter my bag and proceeded to show her the silver ornament dangling at its side. She stared blankly at it for a while. I shook the bag. The moment she heard the tinkling sound she promptly folded her hands in prayer and bowed low before the bag. I suppose, for Shruti, the only bells she was familiar with were those that called one to prayer.

Anyway, my sketch of Shruti's hand was gifted to her mum and I don't have a pic of it to share....this was long, long ago...much before cell phone cameras took over our lives.

Here's my sketch of my own non-dominant hand - my left. I've done it in pencil because I'm still unsure about mixing skin tones in watercolor and I'm too lazy to step out and fetch my box of oil pastels.

I can't do more than scribble a very crooked line with my left hand, but I've added a pencil just to give the sketch a hint of warm colour. Haven't paid too much attention to the fine details of the hand like skin texture and shadows...this one's just a simple & quick sketch. Honestly, I was more interested in the pencil :-)

That's my non-dominant hand. Day 4 of the Art-a-Day Challenge.......done!