More Animal Drawing

A lot of people enjoy drawing and painting animals. I know a number of artists whose oeuvre is animal portraiture, for example. For any realist, knowing how to make images of animals is a critical skill. A few weeks back I posted a few animal drawings, done with graphite and digitally, so here are a few more.

Chickens always look gimlet-eyed and sharp--they probably have to be. I grew up in the country where we always had a flock and spent countless hours tending them, gathering eggs, cleaning coops and all the rest. As a consequence of my upbringing, these aren't my favorite birds but the landscape of chickens' heads, combs and bills is always challenging. As with most of my animal sketches these days, this was done using Sketchbook and a Wacom tablet.

This fellow is a pit bulldog whose name, according to the caption of his photo is Tank. He definitely looks like his name and reminds me of a bulldog with the same name who lived with some friends. My friends' dog was an enormous, loose-lipped English bulldog who slobbered incessantly but was gentle as a lamb. In contrast, the guy in this drawing looked clearly dangerous to me, especially with those yellow eyes. The challenge with this drawing was to evoke that sense of menace, so I left the main portion of the drawing in grayscale and emphasized those red-rimmed eyes.

This is another dog, more of a hound really, and the drawing medium is silverpoint. The image is a copy of a well-known drawing in silverpoint by Albrecht Durer--probably his own dog. Silverpoint, unlike digital or graphite images, is quite unforgiving. You can't readily erase silverpoint marks, so each stroke must be considered carefully before being laid down. Silverpoint promotes extended consideration and observation before doing anything. For me, then, silverpoint promotes careful and accurate observation.

One final image for today is another bird, this time a pelican drawn from memory using graphite. Some years ago friends and I had an online discussion about drawing animals and came up with a challenge to produce a believable image of these fisher birds. This one was my favorite quick sketch of a successful dive. The bird has managed to scoop up a full pouch of food and sits in the surf, contented. This particular sketch was done with a 4B pencil on a piece of printer paper.

Being a realist, my take on drawing animals--or indeed anything--is the same as the famous quote from Michelangelo Buonarotti--"Draw and don't waste time."

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Previously
Animals
Cats