Hand in colored pencil

I've tried switching things up a bit with this sketch. I used a watercolor pencil (Faber-Castell's Albrecht Dürer in Venetian Red). I also borrowed a bit of hatching around the hand from my good friend Leonardo da Vinci. He really deserves more recognition as his work is pretty solid.

Kidding aside... I've worked from the illustrations in Giovanni Civardi's Complete Guide to Drawing, the section of that book is contained in his volume Drawing Hands and Feet if you're looking for an available copy to help work on your own illustrations.

Beginning the Process
I began this drawing with some very light 2H graphite pencil to establish the basic form of the hand. It took probably more than half of the total drawing time to get this right which is pretty typical for me when focusing on making an accurate drawing. I can't stress the importance of getting this stage right from the beginning. It doesn't matter how good your technical skills are if your proportions are off -- viewers have a lifetime of experience with proper proportions even though most of us probably couldn't articulate what seems wrong without close inspection. I still made a few errors but you'll have to find them yourself if you're interested but one clue is that it has to do with proportions (unsurprisingly). I didn't actually measure any of the proportions which I would definitely do on a more serious effort.

Once I had the rough proportions, I created a clean outline of the entire hand and fingers with an F grade clutch pencil lightly drawn. I then drew over this line with the colored pencil and then began the shading process.

Shading
Shading is basically done by following the undulations of the skin but there was no rigid rule followed here. The key for me is to start lightly and really focus on the 3-dimensional form I am trying to portray. The darker the colored pencil becomes, the more it has a tendency to blob up on the page, meaning it begins clumping together and smearing. This is when having a very sharp pencil makes a huge difference. Try to avoid just smudging your darks, work in layers and employ cross-hatching instead.

At the end, I ended up outlining the hand with some 6B and 2B graphite pencil just to provide a solid outline and a more concrete idea of the form. I'm not sure it was necessary but I seemed to like the overall image better after doing this.

The colored pencil effect has an immediate appeal which might result in me working more in this medium. I've been interested in trying my hand at some life drawing, so this might be a nice medium for that application as well.

I'll definitely be working in colored pencil when I turn to full body studies on toned paper along with charcoal pencil and vine charcoal.