It took me 12 hours to rough out the hands. When I gave her the harp, I realized the harp needs to be thickened up a lot.

Hands are one of the great joys of sculpting. An aspect of the human form is the juxtaposition between the hard bony structure of, say, the elbow, and the soft fleshiness of the surrounding muscles. In the hands, the dance between these two textures is very complex. The bones are like stones in a river with the muscles flowing around them. There is movement, turbulence, and exciting interaction of hard versus soft, rigid versus pliable.

This difference gives the human figure a dynamic quality. Too much softness, and the figure becomes flaccid and uninteresting; too much hardness, and the figure is brittle. Each texture has to be expressed with clarity and distinctness. This is what makes the hands so delightful to sculpt.