Lee Hammond - Draw Real Animals!

NORTH LIGHT BOOKS
Cincinnati, Ohio

www.artistsnetwork.com

This book is dedicated to my cat J.J., whom we recently lost, and all of the wonderful animals we have had the pleasure of sharing our lives with. Duke, Danny, Brandy, Zephyr, Puds, Poppy and Peaches and Tippy, are just a few who enhanced our world. Also, this is for my wonderful children, Shelly, Le-Anne and Christopher, and my granddaughter, Taylor, who share my love of animals. Thanks to you all, for making my life so much fun!

CHAPTER ONE
You Can Do It!

Learn what makes a good animal drawingthe author's secret to drawing realistically! See student work before using these techniques and after. Their progress will inspire youyou can have the same results!

CHAPTER TWO
Using the Right Materials

You don't have to spend a fortune, but to draw like a pro you need the right tools. Find out what they are and how to use them.

CHAPTER THREE
Shapes

In order to draw realistic-looking animals, learn to see them as shapes that fit together like a puzzle. Here are some warm-up shape exercises to get you started.

CHAPTER FOUR
Shading

You can make shapes look dimensional with shading. Learn how to shade any shape using pencil, tortillion and kneaded eraser. Then you'll start to put shapes and shading together to begin drawing animals.

CHAPTER FIVE
Facial Features

Now you can begin paying attention to details. Learn how to draw many different eyes and noses. It's still just shapes and shading but you'll be amazed at how realistic they look.

CHAPTER SIX
Hair and Fur

Many animals have hair, so you'll need to learn to draw all types from long shaggy fur to short, curly hair and wispy, fine hair. The author shows how to render all kinds of hair realistically, from a squirrel's tail to a lion's mane.

CHAPTER SEVEN
Textures

Most non-furry animals have wonderful textures to draw. Practice drawing a wrinkly elephant, scaly fish, shiny smooth dolphin and shark, bumpy lizard and alligator, and muscular horse.

CHAPTER EIGHT
Patterns

See how to draw beautiful patterns on animals such as a frog, zebra, leopard, tiger, giraffe and bird. They look complex, but the author shows how to simplify the process of drawing them. Don't forget to add shading to make them dimensional!

CHAPTER NINE
Composition

Learn how to make your drawings even more professional-looking by carefully planning their composition. Most subjects on a page appear in one of five basic shapes diagrammed here by the author.

CHAPTER TEN
Setting

Learn secrets for extracting just the right elements from a photo to create a background for your drawing. You'll find out how to use contrast close up and make things appear blurry and far away.

Bunny
by Allison Sapienza, age 11

This is a proud example of a young student's work. All it takes is the desire to learn, and the patience to apply the principles. Good job, Allison!

In all of my years of teaching art, I have found one universal trait amongst my students: the desire to draw ANIMALS! Our love of animals follows us from childhood on, along with our attempts to draw them.

As children, we were satisfied with our representation of animals on paper. A simple circle became the cat's face, an oval became a mouse and so on. But what happened when we got older? It became more difficult to capture the look we wanted. The question became, How do I make it look real?

This book is designed to take the frustration out of animal drawing. It will take you back to the simple approach we used as children, then lost as adults. It will show you a procedure that can then be used to draw anything!

The ability to make your drawings as polished as the ones in this book will take some time to develop, but don't worry! You will see improvement right away, and your drawings will become better and better. Practice is the real key here, and this is a fun book that will keep you wanting to draw.

This is a book for all ages to grow with. Just follow the step-by-step examples and you will be astonished at your results! If you don't believe me, just take a look at some of the student work, by very young students, that is presented here. You can do it too! You can make it look real!

If you can do this, you can draw anything!

So what do you think makes a good animal drawing? It goes beyond just what the animal looks like. This example shows what can be done with my technique. See how full and hairy this dog looks? Good contrasts (the balance of light areas against dark areas) are very important too. The trick is using the darks and lights together to create shape and blending to create realism.

As you go through the book, look at all of the illustrations carefully. See the pictures as shape first, then ask yourself, where is it dark? where is it light?

Since you will be working from pictures and photographs, remember that your artwork can be only as good as the picture you are working from. A tiny, blurred picture will not give you the information you need to do a good piece of artwork. Make sure you can see all of the details clearly You cannot draw what you cannot see! For this reason, the picture should be fairly large (at least three to four inches).

Portrait of a Husky by Lee Hammond 9" 12", pencil on Bristol

Drawing of a Dog (first attempt) by Joey LaMourie, age 12

This drawing of a dog is good. It is drawn with good shapes, and a good understanding of what the dog looks like. However, it looks like a sketch, a quick fun drawing, rather than a finished piece of artwork.

Drawing of a Dog (second attempt) by Joey LaMourie, age 12