"Opening" graphite, watercolor. 15 hours. (18 x 14 inches)
I created this piece to capture the movement and expression that hands hold. I chose the simple act of opening and closing a hand, and tried to get a full range of dimensions and angles. Bright colors in the background create emphasis on the movement, with the most powerful color, red, on the two central positions of the hand, when it is the most open. The most difficult part of this piece was getting the shading on the fingernails to be accurate, and keeping the hands the correct size in relation to each other. The easiest part was doing the background colors.