Learn How to Draw

AnimalsCreated exclusively for Craftsy

by Antonella Avogadro

TABLE OF CONTENTS

How to Draw a Dog

How to Draw a Cat

How to Draw a Bunny, Bird and Hamster

How to Draw a Horse

How to Draw a Cow

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HOW TO DRAW A

DOGFor our first tutorial, we will be drawing man’s best friend. Yes, dogs! There are many beautiful and adorable breeds of dogs out there, and I’ll leave you with the very difficult task of choosing just one to draw. For this tutorial I will be showing you how to draw a beagle, but the same principles apply to any breed.

Before You Begin: Study Sketches

To start with, it’s always convenient to get familiar with the shapes and proportions of the subject by creating some study sketches. When it comes to animals, we don’t tend to be as familiar with their skeletal system as we are with ours, so a quick image search online can help us get a better idea of the structure that lies beneath the surface.

Image via Wikimedia Commons

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If you wish to, you can draw some quick 5-minute study sketches in your sketchbook or sketchpad of different poses and angles. This will help you loosen up the hand and get even more familiar with the general shape of the dog breed you have chosen. This step will also allow you to get your ideas on paper and choose poses or decide if you want to draw a portrait or a full-body image.

STEP 1:

Begin by blocking the basic shapes that make up the dog and draw the base sketch. Use circles and ovals to guide you through the initial process. Draw very faint horizontal and vertical guidelines to help you align and place things like the eyes, snout, height of the face, etc.

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STEP 2:

Define the outline with a soft, clean pencil line and clean up the sketch by erasing the basic shapes and guidelines. Once you are happy with the final line-art, you can start to shade the fur and features. Use a dark pencil (such as a 6B) to shade the eyes and snout.

STEP 3:

Depending on the breed and their type of fur, you will want to shade it with directional strokes mimicking the direction of the hairs on the dog. Don’t get caught up trying to draw individual hairs, instead shade the general fur area in its same direction using a 2B pencil.

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STEP 4:

Now, build up the tone and details of the fur by using a darker color and scribbling smaller sections of fur.

STEP 5:

This is my absolute favorite tip: Mold a kneaded eraser into a thin point with flat edges and stroke it over the shaded areas to pick up a little bit of graphite from small sections and create this fur effect.

STEP 6:

Continue shading the fur of the dog with the same 2B pencil we have been using and layer darker areas of the fur with a 4B pencil. Keep drawing scribbles until you are happy with the result.

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HOW TO DRAW A

CATCats, along with dogs, are probably the most popular animals, since they make wonderful companions. What better way to capture the essence of your favorite feline friend than learning how to draw them?

Before You Begin: Study Breeds

As with most animals, there are various cat breeds. If you want to draw your own cat, that’s a great place to start! You can even take advantage of having a live model by drawing some warmup sketches of your cat in different poses. Otherwise, you can look for different cat breeds online, in books or magazines, and choose which one you want to draw. You can apply these steps to any cat pose or breed.

STEP 1:

As usual, I like to begin by locating my subject on the paper. Do this by simplifying it to basic shapes, like circles and ovals, and draw light guidelines to find the cat’s proportions. Make sure you keep these lines soft so that you have no trouble erasing them later on.

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STEP 2:

Now that we have our basic sketch and it looks proportional, we will begin to draw the features of the face. A 2B pencil is soft enough to sketch things like the eyes and snout and allows us to easily erase and redraw any mistakes. Sometimes drawings don’t turn out great right off the bat, it’s natural. So, remember this in general whenever you are drawing: Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and go in with an eraser. We learn much more from our failures than our successes. This is how we are able to improve and move forward.

STEP 3:

Now that we have placed all the features we can clean up our drawing by erasing the basic underlying shapes and guidelines. Most types of cats have a very defined outline around their eyes. Grab your 4B or 6B pencils and shade in this outline along with the darkest part of their eyes in the center. Lightly shade the eyes, making sure to leave a white circle to represent the reflected light. This will bring more realism into your drawing.

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STEP 4:

Now we need to move on to the fur and shadows. This particular cat has white fur around his neck with some beautiful spots and lines on its back and legs. Using H or 2H pencils, shade the lightest shadows around the face and neck.

STEP 5:

Using the same H pencils (or shading very lightly with a 2B pencil), block in the shadow on the tail and shade the fur with small lines and strokes to create the furry texture.

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STEP 6:

You can continue building up the darker spots on the fur by layering pencil strokes using a 6B pencil. Tiny scribbles are a great way to imitate the look of fur.

STEP 7:

Keep working on the drawing by lightly shading areas of fur and the kitty’s paws until you are finished.

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HOW TO DRAW A

BUNNY, BIRDAND HAMSTER

If you enjoyed learning how to draw a cat and a dog, you are really going to like what’s in store for this tutorial. Follow along as we draw three other cute, furry friends: a bunny, a hamster and a parrot. We’ll cover how to render feathers and two different types of fur.

Drawing the Base Sketch

STEP 1:

As usual, start by locating the animals on your paper. Use these basic shapes to determine the proportions of the bunny, parrot and hamster. I drew the outlines of these shapes particularly dark so they could be seen easily, but you’ll want to keep these lines light so you don’t have a hard time erasing them in the next step.

For the hamster, most of the shapes will be very circular since this is naturally a very round animal. In contrast, the bunny and parrot are more elongated animals, therefore you will use more oval shapes to define their proportions.

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STEP 2:

Using our sketch made up of basic lines as a guide, you can now start to outline the shapes of each animal and draw their eyes, mouths and beaks. Keep your lines smooth and pencil strokes light.

Drawing a Parrot

STEP 1:

After you have achieved your base sketch for the parrot you can start shading some shadows. We will begin with the beak and face, and make our way down the body. The bottom of the beak is one of the darkest areas, so use a 4B pencil to shade this.

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STEP 2:

In this step you will need to shade the chest and bottom feathers of the parrot so we can begin to give it more dimension and realism. Scribble darker sections throughout to create the look of feathers on the chest, and press down on the pencil right under the feathers of the wing to create darker shadows. An easy technique to render the top feathers that still makes it look realistic without having to spend too much time on the details is to simply scribble curvy shadows in the shape of a “U,” as shown above.

STEP 3:

Continue to shade the feathers on the wing and tail. This is also a good time to shade the claws and feet of the parrot. Layer darker shadows where necessary, to help the drawing pop off the page.

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Drawing a Bunny

STEP 1:

Bunnies are very cuddly and furry, so we really want to capture that by using a technique that will make its fur look fluffy and soft. The first step is to lay the general shadows in large strokes. Also, use a 4B pencil to darken the the shadow between its front legs and the eye. Remember to leave a white circle on the eye to give it a realistic look.

STEP 2:

Once you have defined the main areas of shadow on this cute bunny, we can start to draw the fur with short, linear pencil strokes.

We don’t need to draw these throughout the whole body, just the sections where there are some shadows, like under the ear,

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underneath its mouth and on its legs. Keep drawing a few darker strokes and shading the bunny, but try not to overwork the drawing so that some parts of the fur remain blank. Leaving certain areas of the fur blank is exactly what will create the effect of fluffy hair.

Drawing a Hamster

STEP 1:

Let’s now go to our hamster sketch. We will begin the same way we did with our two previous drawings: By defining the larger areas of shadow. To do this, use a 2B pencil and shade places like the ears, snout, eyes and spots on the fur. Use a 4B pencil to darken the eyes. As always, make sure you leave a white circle in each to represent the reflection of light to make it look more realistic.

STEP 2:

Now that your drawing is coming together, use the same 4B pencil as in the previous step to start creating depth in the ears and on the face.

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STEP 3:

We will render the fur of the hamster similarly to how we did the bunny, but the strokes will be darker and more prominent, with less areas left blank. Reach for that same 4B pencil and draw short lines on top of the areas we shaded on Step 1.

Continue to do this until you cover all of the shaded areas.

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HOW TO DRAW A

HORSENow that we’ve covered how to draw pets, let’s move onto drawing farm animals, starting with a horse. This tutorial will guide you through how to achieve accurate proportions and realistic renderings of a horse’s fur and features.

STEP 1:

When drawing animals, the one rule you should keep in mind as you start your drawing is to never begin with something in particular like an ear, the eyes or a snout. Always start off by blocking the general shape of the creature.

Again, use geometric shapes, determine the basic structure of the animal’s body. You can see above how to break down the figure using circles, ovals and straight lines to connect these.

STEP 2:

Now we will focus on the horse. Use soft pencil strokes to define the horse’s figure and facial features. Now is the time to reach for an eraser and begin to clean up the sketch by erasing our guides and circles.

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STEP 3:

Use a 2B pencil to block in the basic shadows of the body and hair. This is where we begin to define the horse’s muscles around the neck, legs and torso.

STEP 4:

Now, let’s reach for a 4B pencil to layer the darker tones and bring more dimension to our drawing. The horse’s fur is usually very smooth and soft, so we will use smooth pencil strokes to lay the shadows all over its fur. For the hair, shade the darker areas and use curvy lines to represent single hairs here and there. This will give the look of full hair without having to draw every single strand.

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HOW TO DRAW A

COWThe last animal we’ll draw is a cow, and will see an interesting contrast compared to the other animals we have drawn so far.

STEP 1:

Compared to the previous animals we have drawn, cows have a much more angular shape. This is why the most fitting basic shape to start drawing it is a rectangle. Sketch where the face, ears and legs will be placed and begin to find the body’s curves within the rectangle.

STEP 2:

After you finish drawing the initial sketch, erase all unnecessary lines and begin to add some more details. Begin to find the cow’s curves within the original rectangle. Also draw where its spots are located and begin to refine some of the details.

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STEP 3:

After you are completely done with the details you can get started on the task of shading your drawing. For the cow, this is where we will begin to add all of the realism through shadows and its dark spots. You can start off by shading in a messy fashion as we will refine it all in the following steps.

STEP 4:

The cow’s spots are very dark, but keep in mind that they are not monotone. They have areas of deep darkness where the shadows are located, but the same spots present a lighter tone where the light hits. Keep this in mind when you use your 6B or 8B pencil to shade these areas.

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STEP 5:

Cows present a smooth surface. To achieve this soft and blended look, I recommend using a blending stump to smooth over the darker tones.

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ANTONELLA AVOGADRO

Antonella is a fashion designer and freelance illustrator, with a soft spot for art history. She spends her days juggling her three passions: drawing, sewing and drafting patterns, while sharing her creations on her blog Stardust Soul.

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