https://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/draw-a-dog-in-15-minutes • Posted by Jake Spicer
For this exercise you'll need a photo of a dog to work from; printed or on a screen. The approach could be applied to a range of different drawing materials. To really capture the personality of a dog you need to spend time observing their behaviour, sketching their energetic movements in half-formed notes, perhaps attempting longer studies when they are asleep or eating. Apply the same energetic marks you'd make when sketching from life to drawing from a photograph. This exercise is taken from my book 'Draw Dogs in Fifteen Minutes'.
For this exercise you'll need a photo of a dog to work from; printed or on a screen. The approach could be applied to a range of different drawing materials. To really capture the personality of a dog you need to spend time observing their behaviour, sketching their energetic movements in half-formed notes, perhaps attempting longer studies when they are asleep or eating. Apply the same energetic marks you'd make when sketching from life to drawing from a photograph. This exercise is taken from my book 'Draw Dogs in Fifteen Minutes'.
Start with simple shapes - landmarks around the body. These aren't fixed shapes; they will be different for different poses and different dogs. Keep your shapes loose and simple; this is just to give your drawing some underlying structure.
Find similar shapes for the haunches, and tail and jot down the position of the paws in relation to one another.
Jon the landmarks with flowing lines, hinting at the shape of the dog's body beneath it's fur.
Lightly erase your drawing, leaving some of it showing through. Now look for shapes around the dog. These 'negative' spaces will help you to see the outline of the dog. Draw in background shapes around your dog.
No look for the outline around the dog. Use your partially erased structure to guide you as you draw and experiment with broken marks when the edge of fur is indistinct.
Start to add tone to the fur. Look for shapes of draw: see markings on the dog's coat and shadows as one as they all contribute to the tonal value of the coat. Use quick parallel marks to build up shadow shapes.
Continue to build up tone in the coat, using marks that flow in the direction of the dog's fur to suggest the feeling of surface.