How to Draw: Animal Gestures (Patreon)

Usually, we think about gesture drawing as the practice of drawing the human figure. But of course we can extend this practice out to drawing all kinds of things. The process can be adapted to draw anything organic and sometimes even man made things.

Today we are focusing on how to apply our gesture drawing process to drawing our animal friends.

Mike Mattesi has a wonderful explanation in his book Force: Animal Drawing, where he explains the lines of action in terms of drawing a generic mammalian form, kind of like a sea lion:

Mike Mattesi, FORCE: Animal Drawing:

I’m currently in the middle of illustrating a non fiction picture book about the ocean and the many animals that live in it. I’m using my gesture process to help create movement and appeal in my sharks, squids, fish, sea lions, whales, etc.

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Top Tips for Gesture Drawing Animals:

• Lines of Action
• Anatomy Studies
• Big to Small
• Proportions
• Understand the story/action.

Hmmm....don't these sound familiar??

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Some wonderful animals artists and instructors that I admire:

• Joe Weatherly (Workshop Photos HERE)
• Richard Powell - wonderful quick animals gestures
• Erika Worthylake - character designer extraordinaire!
• Aaron Blaise - Disney animator and teacher. 

Some additional YouTube videos on drawing animals:

FORCE 

Glenn Vilpuu 

Aaron Blaise 

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If you'd like to practise some of the techniques from the video you can reference my Pinterest board of Animals HERE.