People
have been drawing animals for thousands of years, and
indeed they are one of the oldest subjects for art. Learn
how to put your own impressions of pets, zoo animals
and more in this useful primer.
You
don’t need much more than pencils and paper to
make a drawing, and there is a good section here on
what to buy and what sort of marks each is capable of. There
is also a section showing what different types of paper
can offer with examples, and also something on setting
up an area for working. I was particularly
impressed by the section on reference material and what
makes a good study of an animal and a poor one, with
more helpful examples to look at. Discover
how to get the most out of the animal you are trying
to photograph or draw and how to use source material. The
animals themselves include cats and dogs, a tiger, wolf,
meerkat, horse and lizard and each project is made up
of illustrated steps explaining what to do next. As
a plus there are codes you can scan with a Smartphone
or type into a computer or tablet where you can watch
the artist at work. As with most YouTube
style footage it is rather faint and looks better on
a large screen than a small one. Added to
the information in the book it does help to bring out
certain tricky parts such as eyes, fur, expression etc
and I hope to see more of this in the future. I
would have liked more on getting the look of the animal’s
coat right and a slightly longer section on using the
acetate grid but apart from that this is a good, user-friendly
guide. This book is aimed more at people
who have already had some drawing experience and want
to try something different rather than the total beginner
to drawing. However, anybody belonging to
the group termed “improvers” should get
plenty out of it.
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