Part 2 Project 5 Ex 1a

Animal line study

Nowadays we don't have any pets but we do have a whole range of wildlife that is welcome in our rural garden.

In the shed

Eating the slugs I hope

On the bird table

Stealing the bird food

Watching

It's always special when the hare turns up so I've decided to do some studies of hares although I'm afraid I only have this one photo of my own.

I thought understanding the basic framework might help a bit so I looked on line and this site was useful because it gave both a sitting and an erect hare skeleton.

http://www.dkimages.com/discover/Home/Animals/Mammals/Rabbits-Hares-and-Pikas/Anatomy/index.html

Sitting hare
http://www.dkimages.com/discover/Home/Animals/Mammals/Rabbits-Hares-and-Pikas/Anatomy/index.html

Erect hare
http://www.dkimages.com/discover/Home/Animals/Mammals/Rabbits-Hares-and-Pikas/Anatomy/index.html

Hare running
http://www.skullcleaning.com/skull-cleaning-services/3/Skeleton-Articulation.htm

The running hare is in a very similar posture as the Golden Hare of Jackie Morris on my previous post.

Golden hare - Jackie Morris
http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/gallery/2013/oct/04/how-to-draw-hares-jackie-morris

I also found this site which takes me through drawing a hare in great detail.

http://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-draw-animals-hares-and-rabbits--cms-21262

This image shows the muscles of a hare.

Hare muscles
http://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-draw-animals-hares-and-rabbits--cms-21262

This image shows me how the artist "clothes" the animal in muscle and then skin and fur.

This is my own image of our garden hare:

The hare was very alert to everything around him but took a fairly laid back approach to hiding in the shrubs. It's position is like the sitting skeleton. His eyes were huge and his ears, long and dark.

In my research around drawing animals I have found an essay on poses; once again it's design.tutplus

http://design.tutsplus.com/articles/how-to-draw-animals-the-importance-of-drawing-a-pose--vector-24537

The basic premise is that any animal can be drawn if attention is given to its framework - the skeleton. The author uses big muscle masses and bones to define the shapes and then adds flesh.

Hare framework
http://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-draw-animals-hares-and-rabbits--cms-21262

I had a go at using this and was surprised at the result.

Hare using the framework - pencil

The framework I used is just about visible.  It seemed to take all the doubt out of my drawing.  The essay suggests that any animal, in any pose can be drawn in this way.  A knowledge of perspective is helpful when things start to get a bit more complicated but the same principles apply.

I tried again using the running hare as my model:

My rear circle must have been too small because the back legs are not powerful enough.

I continued using this method of creating a structure and did these sketches.

Pencil and fine liner

Pencil

Feet in fine liner

Ears in pencil and charcoal

Eye - graphite and pastel

Drawing these components has been really useful in helping me to understand how the hare is put together.



http://www.dkimages.com/discover/Home/Animals/Mammals/Rabbits-Hares-and-Pikas/Anatomy/index.html

http://www.skullcleaning.com/skull-cleaning-services/3/Skeleton-Articulation.htm

http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/gallery/2013/oct/04/how-to-draw-hares-jackie-morris

http://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-draw-animals-hares-and-rabbits--cms-21262

http://design.tutsplus.com/articles/how-to-draw-animals-the-importance-of-drawing-a-pose--vector-24537