This was perhaps by far the most interesting yet exhausting project I've taken on. To be honest, I've never worked with colored pencils much and it took me a while to familiarize myself with the media.
I was first inspired by artworks done by WanJin GIM (Please do click on it to check out his mesmerizing portfolio). The vibrant colors and translucent skin tone...were just simply, wow.
To my knowledge, there are hardly any available graphic materials focusing on the finger techniques of playing the guzheng, a Chinese zither. So when my guzheng tutor approached me with the idea to draw her hands as she plays, I knew I had to try.
By the time I finished the third hand, a color sequence of how I drew theses hands has been established: browns ➜ blues ➜ reds ➜ beige.
Illustrations explained (from top to bottom and clockwise):
♪ Finger techniques in poster format (with great help from Kaishodo Calligraphy for the center piece ❝箏❞)
♪ How to wear "picks" on the right hand, typically in four fingers
♪ How to press the strings with your left hand in "Vibrato" to add some pitch ornamentations
♪ How to pluck the string back and forth very rapidly with the right thumb in the iconic "Tremolo"
♪ How to simultaneously pluck the strings with your right thumb and middle finger one octave apart
Also, don't forget to check out some of the music made by Guan Wang, hand model for this project and my guzheng tutor. ｡◕‿◕｡