Using Shapes to Learn How to Draw Animals

By Charlene Sim

People who are interested in learning how to draw will often start with simple images. Often this leads to the desire to draw animals, even though they are not always easy to draw. Some animals have simple structures and lend themselves well to being drawn, but there is such a wide variety of animals that will be more difficult than others. One way to tackle this is by focusing on creating animals by only using common shapes.

If you portray various animals with basic shapes, like rectangles, triangles, squares or dots, which are all arranged in different ways to produce body parts and features, then you'll have an easier time drawing. This can be good practice at drawing, even though it might seem a bit juvenile, since it offers you an easy technique for assembling assorted sections of varying animals. After some practice, you'll come to understand the shape of each animal that you draw, and how each segment is put together.

Using shapes when sketching animals won't create true pictures, however it will provide you with a result not unlike animation characters or cartoons. If this is your field of interest, then that's all that you require. Artist Ed Emberley has published several books that demonstrate many different ways to draw common animals utilizing only a handful of different shapes. His books are essentially targeted to drawing for children, however they can assist a serious beginner to gain a structural understanding of drawing.

The next step would be to merge the shapes together to draw animals that have more realism to their look. Just like an object that you draw with a pencil and then erase to remove overlapping lines, you can start with shapes joined together, and then erase the connecting lines so that each body part flows more smoothly into the other. With drawing practice you can eliminate the boxed look and hard angles to create animals that are a good step closer to looking real.

So if you want to draw animals but don't have any inherited skills, then a good way to learn how to draw is by starting with shapes. Look at different animals and decide how you want to put them together using only a stock supply of shapes. Once you've mastered that particular technique, you can use the skills you've developed to more comfortably take the next step. If you're serious about wanting to learn to draw and paint, then this is an easy and fun way to begin. - 32367

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