From head to hand

A returning question, when analyzing and looking at drawings, is What is drawing today?
As I am not sure yet how to approach this question from my own practise precisely, I will answer this question in parts.

Remembering John Berger's 1987 categories in drawing (perception, communication and memory), I would like to try and describe what happens when drawing is done in plural - or several drawings of the 'same'?

In the Stedelijk Museum I stood many hours in front of the painting Arbeider (Neger) 1939 by Hatterman.

After drawing the man's head a few times, I started to draw his right hand. 

(I am doubting how to structure the series: on the base of difference, or from sameness)

As you can see these hands are very different. They differ in almost everything.
Not only were context and fingers left out, every drawing is made of a different
size and based on another color.

                                As you can see, these drawings are made of one and the same hand.
                     They are appearing in the same color range and although one sees only parts of the hand, it is clear that the hand is in the same position. 

So then what is it that they all share? What does one expect to see in the next one?
It seems to make more sense to talk on the hands through difference because they are not at all the same.

Looking at something for a long time and more than once, is different from looking at something shortly. Through being together with the painting, my interest moved from head to hand. Drawing the painted head made me feel I was trying to repeat the painter's work.

My attention then went from hand to hand. Because the painted hand seems to be the closest body part in the painting and the painter was clearly having trouble painting it, I figured that there was something in that painted surface that could help me understand the relation between the painter and the model, and the relation between the painting/painter and me.

By repeating to draw the hand, I prolonged the time I was drawing it. After all those hours I got sort of familiar with it's form. But it was not possible to make the same drawing or painting again.

By showing many of the drawings I feel I am showing something that is not visible in only one drawing. The time spent is present in the plurality. Next to that I hope to show that drawing something repeatedly, makes one aware of the similarities one assumes. While the exciting fact is probably that one can never see everything at once.

In making and showing drawings in series I hope to include a sort of remembering. After drawing, there is something that stays behind. A hand remembers. This embodiment of the visual is very relevant now.