Praying Hands

This is a commission for a friend of mine in Texas.  She had seen my drawing of the hands and the coffee cup which you can see here.  This is the first draft, drawn literally from my reference which was a photo I took of my husband's hands.  I did the sketch from life.  I put a lot of detail into the fingers themselves because I wanted the wedding ring to stand out.  The back of the hand I used quick, broad strokes and worked with values and shading instead of tight detail so that the eye would be drawn to the fingers.

This is the finished piece as specified by my friend.  I added hints of fingers behind the forward hand and shading to the background.  Size is 4 x 6 inches, 2B pencil, carbon and charcoal pencil on Stonehenge paper.