Stiff Art Hands?

[Diagrax]

Hey, have you guys ever drawn so much that your hand eventually becomes really stiffened and stays that way? Not carp. tunnel syndrome, but the actual joints in your fingers feel achy and then you can't bend your hand backwards the same way one used to?

Wondering if anyone else gets this, and if it's the beginning of arthitis which my family genetically passes, or maybe a long break may help. It would really be wretched if it were arthritis at my age, I just turned 18. XD

Share your experiences!

[chaosrocks]

Ive had arthritis in my hands since I was in my early 20s. You learn to live with it. actually the occassion stiffness from over use and over tension is quite normal and probably not anything to worry about. You are probably just using musclegroup tha tyou are not use to using and tense while you are using them
when its stiff an sore in the morning and hurts to move then you have to exercise your joints to warm them up. It hurts.... get use to it
I play the piano or the harp every morning for 15-20 minutes just to make my hands mobile. sometimes I cry.

good luck
chaos

[CCThrom]

I don't know about arthritis... could be, especially if it runs in your family. Still, a certain amount of tendon stiffness is normal if you hold your hand in one position for a long time. You may be gripping the pencil too tight. Also take more breaks... maybe like every 10 - 15 minutes, stop and flex your fingers.

[information_high]

Don't use so much pressure when you draw. You don't need to.

[HunterKiller_]

Periodically stretching your shoulders, arms, wrists and hands really helps.
Get into a habit of doing it early.

[fersteger]

I've heard so many horror stories of hands going bad as you get older, and I feel it too sometimes, usually my whole forearm gets really sore, nothing painful yet but Im sure someday.

[Zarett]

Something that'll help your hands is to use soft pencils/felt-tip pens instead of Colerases of Satan. The colerase pencil has so much wax in it that you have to push really hard - it'll destroy your wrist in pretty short order if you use it enough. I hear that feature story artists in animation switched to sharpies from Prismacolor black pencils because even the pressure needed for a soft prisma pencil injured them after a few years.

Stretchin your hand (bend your fingers towards the back of your hand and hold), kneading the muscles up in your forearm (nar your elbow joint where all your muscles attach) can help too.

[Mr Man]

As I have been drawing alot more recently I have discovered my hand starts to get a little achey and tired after a while. Nothing barley noticable but I feel as though It could build up if I didnt have a break.

I remember reading that Iron palm martial artists train their hands to be tougher. They do a series of impact exercises on some kind of bean bag/sand bag and after there intense routine they rub a healing medicine into their hands called Dit Dat Jo. Now im not saying we should use this type of exercise but I wondered If the Dit Dat Jo could have some sort of healthy affect?

[Idiot Apathy]

I think the balm or Dit Dat Jo you are talking about is more for bloodflow, heals bruises etc. I've used similar for conditioning, smells funny.

Protect your hands! Mine hurt too much :\

[Diagrax]

Haha, I've went as far as trying to become ambidextrous to lessen the daily workout in my right hand and reserve it for tasks that require delicate precision.

Thanks for the extra stretch ideas, it seems to assuage the stiffness out of them better. I never knew about the colerase and prisma pencils though, interesting stuff.

[Ullr]

I get this same thing, but not until I've been drawing straight for at least three or four hours. I stretch my hands, and shake them, but keep drawing up to eight hours. The thing with it getting worse as you get older, I had this as a kid, and I haven't noticed it getting any worse with age (29 now), even though I draw every day for work. I think it is like your leg getting tired pushing the gas pedal for hours on a drive, it's just from the hand being in the same position for so long.
And for reference, I do most of my drawing with a dixon ticonderoga number 2 soft pencil.

--Colin Adams

[eishiya]

My hand gets like that from writing more than 1-2 pages in one go (I have tiny handwriting with almost no spaces between my words). After fifteen minutes or so I can usually move my hand freely again.
When drawing I usually get something similar, but after a few hours (4-5), since my hand changes its position much more. With a tablet my hands have never gone stiff, perhaps because you don't have to press as hard to get a dark line when you need one.

I've found that actually getting up while stretching the hands and arms helps it go away faster, and doing complex hand exercises (more than one or two motions at a time) doesn't. Simple things work.

[redFIVE]

stop slouching, get out more. don't just stretch your hands and arms.

something as simple as un-stretched hamstrings can cause tension and muscle knots to travel up to the serratus, jam up the muscles around the scapula, tense up a tricep and pinch a nerve to end up causing a crapload of pain in the ulna side of your wrist.

it took me 3 years to figure this out