This exercise gives students a head start drawing their hands. Because they start by tracing their hands, they can focus on details for this project.
It's not easy to trace the hand. We have to teach students how to use the pencil and it may take a few tries. I demonstrate how it is possible to make the tracing too small, too large, and inaccurate.
Once they have the tracing, then they can work on adding shading, fingernails, features of the knuckles, wrinkles, muscle and bone evidence, etc.
Sometimes, the students are impressed by the fact that they are drawing their hand with their other hand and do an MC Escher by drawing the pencil, the paper, and the tabletop.
Notice how the student who drew the watch made it more iconic and less realistic. The challenge is to get them to take note of what they have accomplished with the hand and translate that into other drawings in the future. Anytime the students trace something with tracing paper or use grids to copy, they get a helping hand that doesn't help their progress unless they can conceptualize what they have accomplished.
