State of Mind

OMG something that's not fanart. Really I have a lot of stuff that isn't, but I've been kind of preoccupied with creating fanart stuff lately, I'm not in any RPs at the moment in order to get inspiration.

At the time of this picture's creation, I was in an art slump. I had just gotten Painter 8 and I just couldn't manage to doodle anything besides swirling vortexs of water or skies. So... This feeling was in my head that my ability was being taken from me. My thoughts were
running along the lines of:

Current state of mind...
can't finish art
can't write
home is cluttered
mind is cluttered
life is too quiet
losing contact of friends...

note the ... not finished right hand... I'm right handed...

This is the first pic ... well mostly finished pic in painter 8... using mediums acrylic for background with blender brushes, oils on hands Only the frame and the faded part was done in Photoshop.

There are a ton of mistakes, which I already know about. Think of this as a hand study. I used the same rough outline of one hand and copied it and flipped it over for the other, but that was only for the base part. This is lineless. The left hand has many many mistakes, and yet I was staring at it the whole time, a couple of fingers should be pointing inward, but I couldn't manage to paint it that way. The right hand... the hand that holds the pen came out better, but the pinky lacks the 3rd joint... that'll be the in the unfinished section I guess.

references: my own hands
overall time: 5-7 hours (I think if I added it all, worked on it off and on for 2 days)
hardware used: pain in the ass 5x7 tablet with a 3x5 screen, and wireless mouse
Colored using: Painter 8
added efx and sig: Photoshop 7