How to draw a hand holding a pencil

Drawing hands is very challenging.

Because a human hand is versatile from every angle.

And when you’re considering looking at a hand from either a top view or front view, drawing a hand can become slightly difficult even for an artist who’s been drawing for a long time.

Drawing hands comes with practice.

I’ve already covered how to draw a cartoon hand in this post.

But today, I will be teaching you how to draw a cartoon hand holding a pencil specifically.

This is what you will be learning today:

Once you color the hand, you will have learned how to draw a hand holding a pencil.

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Please note that I use an iPad Pro and an Apple Pencil to create all my illustrations. But you can use any tool – a pen and paper, markers, or Photoshop because the drawing method remains the same.

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Let’s begin.

How to Draw a Hand Holding a Pencil (Easy Tutorial for Beginners)

Before I start with the tutorial, please know that I always draw a rough guide before drawing the hand – this helps me draw the hand properly since I have a template to start with.

You can check out my entire tutorial on drawing hands here if you want to really learn how to draw a hand at any angle.

Step 1: Drawing the hand template

Let us start with a bean shape like this first:

If you are using pencils to draw this drawing, please draw this very lightly.

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Now, let’s draw the part of the hand that holds the thumb – it’s usually oval in shape and attached to the bean-like object like this:

Draw a circle on the side of the bean shape

Easy enough, right?

Now, it’s time to draw the index finger.

Start by drawing little circles where each circle represents a segment of the finger.

Overlap the circles so that you can easily see where the joints of the fingers are.

Repeat the same process when drawing the thumb.

Only the thumb and index finger are mainly used when the hand is holding the pencil, so we don’t need to do this for the other fingers since these 2 fingers are the main heroes in this drawing!

Remember, the thumb only has 2 segments – not 3.

Now, draw the pencil; the pencil rough sketch can overlap the template because we will be drawing over this with a permanent outline later.

Just focus on keeping your pencil lines straight and angle it however you want.

You can also hold a pencil and see how the pencil rests in your hand before drawing this pose.

Now that we have the rough sketch, let’s begin drawing the hand. Start drawing the outline slowly.

And then draw the index finger.

Now, draw the thumb.

Remember to add the fingernails when drawing the fingers.

Draw the rest of the hand, and take it slowly; there is no rush.

Remember to add the wrinkles in the skin when drawing the hand.

Once you finish drawing the hand, draw the rest of the arm, including the wrist.

This doesn’t require much effort.

Now, it’s time to draw the pencil!

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It’s okay if the lines are overlapping – we can clean it up later.

Once you’re happy with the hand holding a pencil, start cleaning up the overlapping lines.

Once you’re done with the drawing, you can color your drawing.

I have a whole video here on how to color your digital art.

And we’re done!

We’ve learned how to draw a hand holding a pencil.

Conclusion + Resources

I hope this in-depth tutorial was helpful to you, and you were able to learn how to draw a hand holding a pencil

Drawing anatomy (especially hands and feet) can be a little daunting but with enough practice, you’ll get the hang of it.

If you are looking for books on drawing anatomy, check these out:

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If you want to see more tutorials on drawing clothes, just leave a comment down below. You can check out my other Character Tutorials to learn how to draw people and clothes.

I will be adding more drawing tutorials to this blog, so keep a lookout!

Want to practice drawing beautiful characters?

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