How to use Inkscape? - objects and nodes

[Ralf Mardorf]

Hi :)

today I like to continue learning vector graphics with Linux, by making
an icon. I wonder if it's possible to e.g. add some nodes to a circle I
already made, to transform the circle, so that the circle can become a
hand. Such things are intuitively possible with the iPad's neu.Draw,
unfortunately neu.draw is unstable and crashes more often, than it can
be used and it only can export to Linux, but not import from Linux. I
also installed Xara Xtrem to Linux. What ever Xara should be able to do,
it can't import SVG.
To add a node using Inkscape
this -> http://www.microugly.com/inkscape-quickguide/#add-node doesn't
work for a circle.
After converting a selected object to a path, e.g. a circle, it seems
not to be possible to add a node. By using all the edit node to path
options, it becomes possible to add nodes, but controlling them becomes
a mess.
Is there an easy way to add nodes to a circle, or circle that is
transformed to a path and than just to move the nodes, by keeping the
outline thickness? The circle just should become a palm with fingers,
but the outline shouldn't become thicker or thinner. I can make strange
objects, but not a hand that way.

Btw. I don't want to draw a hand, just the top of a dynamic microphone,
and some other simple objects, but I like to control it, in a way that I
even could draw a hand if needed.

If directly draw a Bezier curve and make the selected segments curves
this might be ok to draw a hand, but not to do less simpler objects and
even drawing a hand that way isn't easy. I'm not talking about drawing
the Praying Hands from Dürer, I'm thinking about much simpler hands like
those ->
http://th02.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2010/306/2/e/study___hands___marge_simpson_by_384sprites-d320yw7.png and other simple objects.

I started some weeks ago and I already asked at the Ubuntu Studio devel
list some other questions, but I've got less time, so I guess I'll ask
some questions from time to time on the users list. There's a Inkscape
forum in German. Somebody else already asked what I wanted to ask too,
so I read the discussion. Yes, it became a discussion, the experts
didn't understand what the user wanted to know, the user only got
idiotic answers, fortunately I found out how to do it myself. It was an
old thread, the person asking this question did stop using Inkscape.

This tutorial does show, what I can do using Inkscape ->
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7C8Qewphn0 :( What a crap!
This is in a style I want to draw, but the tutorial doesn't show how to
draw it, it just opens a picture like this ->
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag9N7F2friM&feature=related Do they use
Mac or Windows to make good drawings and than import those SVG by
Inkscape? Or do they all take photos of their girlfriends and then draw
paths above of the photos? I can't find a serious video tutorial, e.g.
how to draw such a dog, as in the second tutorial by using Inkscape
only.

Some month ago I teach children how to draw things similar to that dog
with pencils and colors on paper. So at the moment I'm well trained in
drawing such simple things, I'm just unable to use Inkscape.

Regards,
Ralf