The Art of Drawing Animals

This is a nice book but a bit confusing for beginners. It tells you what materials to use, some techniques, perspectives, textures and them a step-by-step teaching you how to draw some animals like bunny, bear, lion, lamb, giraffe, cat and dog. I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review

This book is not for the very beginners, but it is an excellent source for all amateur artists. The instructions are clear, and the drawings are perfect.

This is a very helpful book for intermediate artists. I found the instructions at the start helpful regarding drawing fur, hair, white space and more. The start of the book is heavily composed of pets (mostly kittens and different breeds of dogs), then moves on to way more horses than you might need, then eventually goes to some wild animals and then back to pets and horses but this time with colored pencils. Once I got to the end I saw that it was written by a variety of artists and this explains the slightly different techniques and the differences in animal focuses. Overall it's a great resource, though you will need to spend considerable time on each piece.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.

Lovely book with a wide variety of animals and textures to practice! Most of the creature are mammals (both domestic and wild) with a rooster and an owl thrown in for good measure. In the beginning all the animals are grayscale and later on the authors explore color pencil. I didn’t realize how many authors wrote the book’s demos until I hit the end so I was mildly confused by what animals appear next to others as there’s not much organization there.

To me it was interesting that some of the animals are drawn construction style, tracing references, and also (one animal) by filling in grids. This didn’t make much sense to me since the authors don’t really go over how to do any of this... If you already know those basics, great! If not, maybe google them or read a beginner art book before picking up this one.

Overall a solid art tutorial book. Now to go and draw fur and feathers...

It's a modest little book, but it contains the basic know-how for beginners, in order to draw animals with graphite or coloured pencils: mammals: wild and domestic animals, various cubs, a section with horses, some birds.

**I received and voluntarily read an e-ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**

I am horrible at drawing/sketching, so I always jump at the chance to read art books like this one. Not only does this book teach you how to draw several different animals, it also teaches a lot of information about sketching and drawing in general.

Overall, definitely a book I would add to my collection.

I was granted complimentary eARC access to The Art of Drawing Animals through the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for this opportunity! My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.

For relevance: I am a self-taught illustrator who has been known to dabble in photorealism and I absolutely love drawing animals. My preferred mediums are coloured pencil, watercolour, and ink, but the principles used in this book for graphite work apply to those more colourful media as well.

This book starts out with an overview of materials needed for graphite (pencil) drawing and also makes recommendations for charcoal and conté. From there it covers the basic age-old drawing tutorials of shading and basic shapes before covering materials and quick techniques for other media such as coloured pencils. It covers perspective, shading, negative space, etc. and then talks about how to reference from photos. The first animal drawing tutorial is on page 18 and covers the full two-page 18 & 19 spread. All tutorials from here out are two- and four-page spreads.

My initial thoughts are that the artwork in this book is absolutely gorgeous, and I very much appreciate the fact that the last stage is never drastically more polished than the previous stage. There's no "then add details" trap here! The vast majority of the actual animal tutorials do appear to be strictly graphite work, so this is mostly just a DRAWING technique book (as the title implies.) Starting with a beautiful rooster on page 110 (of 128) the tutorials are presented with colour, presumably coloured pencil,

Somewhere in steps 2-4 on most tutorials there is a significant jump in the amount of detail from one step to another that could be intimidating to beginning artists. There is definitely a presumption made that less practised artists will be spending a lot of time with the pre-tutorial pages, and a section in those tutorials has been dedicated to creating different fur textures. There are mini-tutorials on different techniques in sidebars or corner boxes whenever they appear for the first time if you're going through in order, but these are easily missed if you jump around to just the animals you wish to draw.

I would also like to note that some stage 1 base sketches are much more detailed while others are quite simplified. On one hand, showing the simplified circles and squares type first steps on some tutorials is probably an easier place to start from for more beginner artists, which makes the book more accessible, and I do also appreciate showing that some artists start with / some subjects call for a more refined sketch. On the other hand, true beginners may be overwhelmed by the more detailed and cleaned up first stages. I can't decide if the mix is net good or net chaotic.

As mentioned above, the last few tutorials are done in a coloured medium, presumably coloured pencil. As an artist who loves working in coloured pencil myself, I'm impressed with and love the look of the animals on blank/white backgrounds, but I'm not fond of the result of the final piece where a full background is coloured in. Either the paper is far too textured for coloured pencil work or no effort was made to blend out the circular pencil strokes, but areas of solid colour like the sky are chaotically noisy. This leads me to suggest that this is a good introduction to colouring animal portraits, but not a book to reach for to perfect coloured pencil mastery, as the finer points of blending coloured pencil are not being demonstrated.

This book has been illustrated by multiple artists, which is likely the reason why the base sketches vary so much. Working on that assumption, I think it would be nice to know which tutorials were done by which contributing artist so that readers who find particular tutorials more helpful or are drawn to differences in style can easily look up other books and tutorials by the relevant artist. Based on the first titles that pop up when I search each artist on Goodreads I'm fairly confident that the coloured pencil pieces at the end of the book are by Debra Kauffman Yaun, but the rest? I've also noticed as I was going through that I recognized some of the pieces, which means at least some of the tutorials in this book are re-used from other reference books. This is not necessarily a bad thing, nor is it truly a point of critique and the book doesn't claim to have new, exclusive pieces, but I wanted to note this for the sake of potential readers/buyers who already have several art reference books from this series or by these artists.

Overall this book is stunningly well done and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone looking to improve their skills drawing animals, or anyone looking for a nice gift for a budding artist.

As a beginner watercolour artist with very basic drawing skills I find this book is an invaluable reference guide. The detailed illustrations and drawing tips will definitely help improve my drawing techniques to produce much more detailed and accurate work. It is an essential beginners guide to animal drawing, particularly helpful when trying to achieve a realistic study of the subject.

I received an eARC from the author/publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Art of Drawing Animals is a wonderful resource for the intermediate artist.
While the beginning does cover materials, tools and techniques, it becomes quickly apparent that one needs to be reasonably proficient in drawing before tackling some of the projects in this book.
I did find the different techniques for drawing fur and textures very helpful, as well as the quick discussion of perspective.
Since there are a number of contributors, there were varying methods, which I found really interesting. Many used basic shapes to start off the process, while some advocated tracing from photographs, while still others divided the whole image using a grid so you can focus on sections at a time.
The first part of the book focuses on black an white images, while the second section covers coloured images. What I loved was the variety. There are numerous cats, a variety of dog breeds, horses, a bunny, a bear cub, an elephant, an owl, a sheep, a giraffe, a tiger cub, a lion cub, a koala, kangaroo, a rooster, a leopard, a llama.

Overall, a fantastic book filled with projects for the intermediate artist.

This is exactly the book I was looking for! Having recently decided I wanted to try my hand at something artistic again I had picked up my pencils and pastels and began practicing. However, I wasn’t getting the results I hoped for. This book was the answer. It takes you through the different ways of drawing different types of fur step by step, both in strokes used and differing darkness of pencils to get different effects. It was the missing part of the puzzle for me. The authors gradually progress through different difficulties of animals from a rabbit to a koala and everything in between before progressing to use of colour. I loved this book and found the detail of the step by step stages just right. This really helped me get the results I had been striving for.

The Art Of Drawing Animals is beautiful. Lots of advice on what to use and how, as well as detailed descriptions of each stage of your drawing. Accompanied by beautiful pencil sketches to follow along the way. My daughter is taking GCSE art and this is really useful to her, as well as being ideal for novices and advanced art students. There is also later chapters dedicated to colour work in pencil too. A lovely book which will make you want to get your sketch book back out of the cupboard! My only criticism is lack of paint advice and other mediums other than pencil or charcoal types.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This is a beautiful book. The sample drawings are magnificent. It is intended for intermediate artists to improve their technique for drawing animals. This is not a book for beginners, nor does it claim to be. Several artists/authors contributed to the book each demonstrating different techniques. The book also includes general information about supplies and working with pencils. The majority of the animals are mammals, more specifically, dogs and cats. There are other types of animals thrown in, but this is primarily a book for people who want to improve their technique drawing pet animals. Although I have some experience drawing as a hobby and have taken a college course, I do not draw at the level that would make this book useful to me personally. However I think someone who is a more advanced artist could learn lot from the examples presented.
Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

A lovely guide on how to draw a variety of animals, this is perfect for the beginner budding artist. Easy to follow and a good selection of different animals to try out.

A great book for beginner or intermediate artists, with clear, step-by-step pictures that help you get to the end result. I love how it provides an outline for each animal, so that you can trace over it and then follow the pictures. There's a great variety of animals, including dogs, cats, horses, and elephants, and I loved the coloured pencil section at the end. With something for everyone, it's a book I would highly recommend to anyone who wants to learn to draw animals.

What a beautiful book! “The Art of Drawing Animals” will provide you with all you need to learn how to draw incredibly realistic and stunningly beautiful animals, including a variety of cats and dogs, many baby animals, horse and ponies, and a number of wild animals. To provide a backdrop for eager beginners, the authors cover the basics including sketching supplies, and techniques such as shading and perspective, however I believe this book would be best appreciated, (and cherished ) by artists with some existing experience who are looking to expand their skill set.

A basic template is provided as a starting point for each animal, which can be traced or used as a model to provide the animal features and perspective. The authors then cover the techniques needed to layer on, step by step, fur, eyes and other distinguishing characteristics to complete the detailed sketch. The results are simply spectacular.

Although drawing skills at this level are somewhat beyond my experience, I know of a number of artists who would love to receive and learn from this book. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to expand their current skill set into the drawing of absolutely beautiful and incredibly realistic looking animals.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Walter Foster Publishing, and the authors, for a temporary advance review copy of this book, which will be published in Sept 2021. All thoughts presented here are my own.

Use this book to add as much or as little detail you want to draw animals that can talk to you. Loved the color at the end. The initial pencil sketches look like the one sin coloring pages. You could start off with some such book and learn the hard part of doing the coat and fur of the animals, with the various type of pencils and tecniques fast, if you want to chop the learning technique into a shorter time period. Digestable chunks of learning. There is an elment of autonomy and creativity too, because you could draw the fur and emphasis like you want.

This worked well for me! It's easy to understand and not at all intimidating, especially for new learners like me who don't have any talent in this field. With just enough practice and guidance, anyone can enjoy making portraits of our furry friends.

Do you like to draw animals?
"The Art of Drawing Animals. Discover all the techniques you need to know to draw amazingly lifelike animals" was created by Cindy Smith, Nolon Stacey, Patricia Getha, Linda Weil, and Debra Kauffman Yaun, and published by Quarto Publishing Group – Walter Foster. It is one in the series "The Art of Drawing ...". Its goal is to help artists to discover all the techniques they need to know to draw amazingly lifelike animals. The first part of the book contains basic information about tools & materials, drawing basics, various techniques, and instructions how to draw from photos. Then the book is divided into five chapters: 1) Baby Animals, 2) Cats & Dogs, 3) Horses & Ponies, 4) Animals in the Wild (only four animals), and 5) Animals in colored pencil (only six animals). The book is useful for advanced beginner and intermediate artists. The step-by-step drawings will help artists to work on a particular subject and the tips, e.g., how to shade an eye, or how to draw the nose and muzzle of a dog are really helpful. It is important to note that most of the examples are done in the white-gray-black shades, but there are a few drawings that use colored pencils. It is also important to realize that there is a limited variety of animals presented. There are plenty of drawings of cats, dogs, horses, and ponies, but there are, e.g. only one rooster and one owl, no other birds. Consequently I recommend the book to artists who like to draw those animals, for drawing other animals it might be wise to look for another resource.
The complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley free of charge. I was under no obligation to offer a positive review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
#TheArtOfDrawingAnimals #NetGalley

The Art of Drawing Animals is a reformat and compilation which contains some content published between 2006 and 2008. This release is due out in late 2021 from Quarto on their Walter Foster imprint, it's 128 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats (ebook available currently).

The layout follows the familiar Walter Foster tutorial format. An introduction covers tools and supplies and is followed by a short and easily accessible general drawing tutorial and an introduction to texture and perspective. There's a good subchapter on blending, texture strokes, and pencil techniques as well as a short intro on how to compose a drawing and textures and shading for animal drawings as well as a short intro on reference photos.

Each of the chapters includes several start to finish projects illustrating the concepts and techniques from the chapter. The tutorials are grouped roughly thematically: baby animals, cats & dogs, horses & ponies, wild animals, and rendering with colored pencils.

This is a very basic book but full of good technique and will provide some useful takeaways for the majority of readers/artists. This entire series is worthwhile and will be a valuable addition to the artist's home library. Although the tutorials are not aimed at new beginners, there are numerous takeaways for artists at all levels of expertise and the specific step-by-step tutorials will give all readers a benchmark to aim for.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

While this book is a bit advanced for beginners, I would recommend this to anyone looking to take their animal drawings to be next level. I especially appreciated the concrete tips for drawing fur, and as the book went on, the section on colored pencil was particularly helpful for me, as I prefer drawing in color. I learned a lot from this and look forward to seeing other art instruction books from Cindy Smith.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #WalterFoster for the #arc of the #artofdrawinganimals!

This is definitely not a child's or a beginner's drawing book. I have been doing some sketching lately using "Things to Draw" books, but I have no training and I don't consider myself to be an artist by any means. This is much more artistic, professional and instructive than the books I've been referring to recently. This books is geared more toward really learning how to draw versus just monkeying around. This is a book for a bit of a more serious pursuit of lifelike drawing. The first thing I needed to do was buy some proper drawing pencils, I'm such and art novice that I didn't even realize I needed different pencils for different parts of the drawing. The section on tools and materials was very informative to me. Then I spent some time working through the skill building pages at the beginning of the book, which was really helpful. There was content on the basics of drawing, pencil techniques, the basics of perspective, shading and animal textures. From there, the book was divided into sections for different types of animals: baby animals, cats and dogs, horses and ponies, animals in the wild and animals in colored pencil. A lot of variety is included and there is really something to appeal to everyone. It was a great instructive guide and I think I learned a lot. I would recommend it highly for an intermediate artist who is looking to hone their drawing skills. Thank you to Netgalley and Walter Foster Publishing for an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

The Art of Drawing Animals is an extensive guide for how to draw life like pictures. It is best suited to intermediate amateur artists, rather than beginners, and is put together by a variety of different artists. There are instructions for tackling different animal features such as fur. A variety of animal projects are included from cats and dogs to horses and wild animals. Different techniques are used and demonstrated, and it would make a great reference book.

The Art of Drawing Animals is a comprehensive, beautiful drawing book! It includes chapters on baby animals, cats & dogs, horses & ponies, animals in the wild, and animals in colored pencil. The book also starts out with an outline of drawing tools and materials, with helpful photos and text accompanying to help artists decide what to use to create with.
Drawing basics cover shading techniques such as hatching and crosshatching, how to create a three dimensional form, perspective, and creating texture. These basics are essential to master before tackling the animal drawing projects included! I have a background teaching art, and these tips are so helpful in breaking down the process to help it be less intimidating for artists to dive into.
The animal drawings are so skillfully done and beautiful. I love that there are both black and white and color projects included, as they are inspirational to anyone interested in doing their own variety of animal drawings!