It was my wife who calmed me down (as she usually does). How long would it take to get this smoked ham that used to be my right hand back in shape? Trying not to panic, I thought about how long it had taken to develop drawing skills in the first place: years at school, then more years practicing, teaching and demonstrating for students.

My attempts to hatch values on the page were tremulous and erratic, like I had someone else's hand attached to my arm – someone who'd never touched a pencil before. I could pick-up stuff with it and open doors or whatever – but drawing? Moving the pencil subtly? Precisely? It was like I'd never been able to do those things. The best way I can describe it is that it felt like I'd had a complete hand transplant. Not only was the drawing I executed pretty terrible, and not of much use to my students, but my hand felt utterly alien. What happened next was shocking – at least for me. Surely 'muscle memory' alone would compensate for my diminished dexterity with the pencil. My hand was stiff, but drawing a portrait demo is something I've done a thousand times before. We were about 4 weeks into the drawing course at that point, and students were struggling with drawing the face on their figures, so I thought I'd offer some guidance with my own quick version of a small portrait. What really freaked me out was what happened after the cast came off. Ashly drew a demonstration figure for the students and we all made the best of it. I couldn't cancel because people had already signed-up, so I asked our student Ashly to be there to help out. I was scheduled to teach a figure drawing class just a couple of weeks after the incident. What movement I had was minimal, painful and really, really clumsy – not a great recipe for drawing anything. In my case, my drawing hand just didn't work anymore. The result is that when you finally get your cast off, you're left with very little strength, control or flexibility. The muscles you're not using begin quickly to whither and shorten. If you've ever had a broken bone, you're probably shaking your head right now.Īs it turns out, when a limb is immobilized like that – even for just a few weeks – something sinister happens: atrophy. I figured I could use the time to catch-up on other things, and when the cast came off, I'd get right back to drawing just like before. At first, I didn't think this would be a big deal because I'd never broken a bone before.

Hand holding paintbrush drawing