@xhunter: I'm sorry if I seemed harsh, I really wasn't trying to dump on you or anything. I'm glad if you can see what I was trying to get at it and that you're sticking around, though.
@Darian: I actually haven't copied a master work before. But as I said, I might try it. (I don't really want to deface a Picasso painting though.)
Well I certainly recommend you try this exercise. Don't worry about defacing it though, it'll still be there when you're done
Your hand drawing is certainly a noble attempt; hands are extremely difficult, even for experienced artists. I think you ought to stay away from getting intensely detailed at this time--concentrate on form. The actual shape--the volume--of the hand is much more important for conveying information than the details. (also, it's no shame to try working with simpler shapes and objects than hands first)
One exercise you might want to try is to only draw the outside of the hand/object, what's called a contour drawing. The way I first learned it was to very, very, very slowly move your eye along the outside "line" of the hand or object while drawing at the same pace. All one continuous line--don't lift your pencil from the paper, don't erase or anything. Also, don't look down at your paper. At all. You might think that what you'll get is a jumbled mess on the paper that won't look like an accurate representation of a hand at all, and you'd be right. This is just an exercise in turning the categorical portion of the brain off (which is what the Picasso exercise it attempting to accomplish as well). Try this a few times and once you get a bit more comfortable with it go ahead and try it with looking at your paper and see if you can shape it into a more accurate representation of hand.
Anyway I hope you find this useful, and I hope you keep active around here, most everyone here is here to help others learn and to learn from others
