Many aspiring artists have difficulty drawing animals, believing that drawing them is much more difficult than landscapes or still lifes. In a sense, they are right, but in reality - learning to draw animals is not difficult at all if you use the same rules in drawing as in other types of painting.
Instructions
Step 1
The easiest way to draw a dog from life is to take a photo of a short-haired dog, standing in a calm position, with a clearly visible body structure. Determine the proportions of the dog - see how the different parts of its body are located in relation to each other.
Step 2
Take a pencil and hold it vertically in your hand outstretched. Align the point of the pencil with the top of the dog's head, and place your finger in the place of the pencil that matches the perspective of the bottom of the head.
Step 3
Make a mark on the pencil and, from the same distance, calculate by moving the pencil how many heads the dog fits into its body. This will allow you to better understand the proportions. After some time, you will learn, without the help of a pencil, by eye, to determine the proportions of the figure in front of you and transfer them to a sheet of paper.
Step 4
At least in general terms, get knowledge about the anatomy of the dog - this will allow you to better recreate the shape of its body on paper. Use the detailed dog encyclopedia to study animal anatomy. The main thing that you need to glean from books is information about the structure of the skeleton and muscles of the dog, since it is these elements that affect the external shape that you will draw.
Step 5
In addition to the texture and shape of the dog's body, you need to keep perspective in mind - without following the law of perspective, your drawing will not look voluminous and realistic. Only perspective makes a drawing three-dimensional and convincing. Choose in which perspective you will draw the dog - linear, tonal or cropped.
Step 6
Linear perspective is different in that nearby objects appear larger than distant objects; tonal perspective is based on atmospheric phenomena and shadows that indicate the distance of the subject from you.
Step 7
The further the subject is, the more blurred the colors and the more fuzzy the border between shadow and light will be. You can also use a shorter perspective, in which some parts of the subject appear shorter and narrower as you move away.
