Chapter 1 | INTRODUCTION

Anyone wishing to learn how to draw a cat will soon arrive at the following type of instructions: “How do I draw a cat in x number of steps?” It begins with circles and lines, and only after a number of steps does the animal emerge. Coincidentally, in the same pose as one of the first cats ever drawn (above).

I came across a rather extreme example of such a strict schematic method on the internet: “How to draw a realistic cow in 12 steps”. But even in this step 9 (image), I still didn’t recognize a cow.

A completely different approach is to observe the animal, either in real life or from a picture, and only see if and where you might need to use guidelines while drawing. You can apply this to animals in any pose. I will show some examples.

For this ant, for instance, it was initially necessary to roughly determine the proportions between the body parts, as well as a guideline for the slightly higher position of the head relative to the ‘tail’. Of course, this doesn’t have to be precise like the example below. You can draw guidelines very lightly and erase them later.

With this reclining lion, not quite from the side and therefore slightly foreshortened in perspective, it was good to determine the ratio between the enormous head and the (smaller) rest of the body. You also could initially simplify the impressive mane with a few guidelines (not indicated here).

With this goose, the shape of the body was first simplified (approximately a slanted oval). Guide lines were used for the position of the legs and the neck.

With this cow from the side lightly drawn guide lines were useful for directions and proportions.

With this bird from a favorite comic (Little Nemo in Slumberland) I started very sketchily (left). That way, I immediately got roughly the right lengths and directions. Working it out, with an eraser at hand, now became much easier.

SKETCHING OF LIVE ANIMALS

Perhaps, like me, you enjoy making sketches of live animals, such as a pet or animals in a zoo. When animals move, you are forced to sketch a bit swifter and looser. You can, of course, start with sleeping animals. While sketching, you begin to look at an animal in a completely different way than when you only work with photos or images.

Also famous artists like Rembrandt and Breitner made swift sketches of animals.

BROKEN DRAWING STYLE

Finally, when drawing animals (in real life or from pictures), it can be helpful to use the so-called broken drawing style; you first draw (parts of) the animal in loose straight lines, and only then do you create nice curves.

Conclusion: Ready-made methods like the three-step cat may be fun and guarantee success, but it is also good to learn to use your own observational skills and creativity. You can then apply this to other animals in different poses.