Writing/Essay/Journal
When doing a portrait, Mark Balma often finds the subjects’ hands more revealing than their eyes. Write a description of your own or someone else’s hands. Describe what they look like – the color, the shape, the size, the nails, the skin, etc. Then, describe what they reveal about the person.

Activity
Now paint or draw someone’s hands. You can do a close-up of one pair with a lot of detail or a composite picture of many hands. They say “the eyes are windows of the soul.” See if you can reveal the soul of your subject by focusing instead on their hands.