Praying HandsPose Reference

The palms meet along their whole length, from heel to fingertip. The fingers are straight and held together, the matching fingertips touch at the top, and the thumbs stand upright on the inner edge, nearest the chest. To keep the hands vertical, both wrists bend back sharply while the forearms slope down and outward in a narrow V that ends with the elbows near the ribs. The joined hands sit just below and in front of the chin. A small bow of the head, tilting and turning toward the right shoulder, softens the symmetry and gives the gesture its wishing or pleading tone. The legs below the frame keep the shared relaxed stance, weight on the right leg.

Draw the pair of hands as one flattened wedge with a seam down the middle rather than as two separate hands. Because the thumbs face the body, the little-finger edges face outward: from the front the hands appear narrow and edge-on, and the side view from the figure's left shows the whole back of the left hand as a broad flat shape. The three-quarter view sits between the two and is the clearest angle for the wrist bend. The back view shows little beyond the elbows at the waist and the tilted head. From the high angle you look down at the row of fingertips and the V of the forearms; from the low angle the joined hands rise in front of the chin and overlap it.