How to learn to draw a horse

Proportions and Measure

Thanks to their peaceful disposition, horses are excellent models. They often maintain relative immobility, creating an excellent opportunity for sketching. It is good to watch them when they graze peacefully in the field or when they are cleaned. There is no long hair on the horse’s hull, so the structure of its muscular system can be seen in all the details, it’s easy to draw.

To create a good picture, it is very important to lay its foundation correctly. For many aspiring artists, the proportion is one of the main problems, but, nevertheless, if you want your drawing to look convincing, you need to achieve its exact proportions. If the basic structure of your chosen subject of an image - an animal, a person, a plant - is transmitted with distortion, then you will not be able to hide it in any way - neither in color, nor in bright spots, nor in hatching.

Pencil method

So how do you achieve this accuracy? A simple, effective method is shown below. Select a portion of your subject image — in this case the horse’s head — and use it as a unit of measure. Keep the pencil at arm’s length, aligning its tip with the top of the horse’s head. Then move your thumb over the pencil so that your nail is at the level of the bottom of the head. Now you have a unit of measure - the “head”, with which you determine how many “heads” are the length of the horse’s body: holding the pencil horizontally, you can also say how many “heads” are the width of the horse.

When making such measurements, always remember that the hand must be extended, the pencil is vertical, and the thumb is always in the same place on the pencil.

Eye assessment

You can test yourself and find out how good or bad you are able to determine the proportions without resorting to pencil measurements.

Choose an object for yourself: if you don’t have a live horse in front of you, you can use a photograph (in this case it may be more convenient, since the subject of the image will be motionless all the time while you will check yourself!). However, the photograph must be of good quality, and the larger, the better.

Now make a simple sketch of the horse. At the same time, do not bother yourself with the details - in essence, you just need to put a series of strokes on the paper, indicating the size of the head, the estimated size of the body and what the dyna of the legs and other parts of the horse’s body should be compared to its head.

Pattern Check

To find out how accurately you were able to assess the proportions by eye, compare your drawing with a photograph. First, check the proportions of the horse in the photo using the already mentioned pencil metering (of course, in this case you do not need to hold the pencil in your outstretched hand) and write down the results.

After that, check your drawing in the same way and compare how the proportions in your drawing match the photo.

Mastery comes with practice

Always use the pencil metering method when planning the basics of your new drawing. With practice, your eyes and brain will gain enough experience, and you will have to resort to using a pencil only in cases where something in the picture seems to you inaccurate. But until then do not be lazy and test yourself at the very beginning. Do not forget that it is necessary to put the correct proportions and angles in the drawing at this initial stage. Then it will be too late.

Train in evaluating the proportion by constantly comparing different elements of the subject image when working on the drawing. For example, on what leg does the horse have a length from the grandmother to the knee longer, on the front or back? How does this relate to the horse’s head length?

Near plan

Having met a bent horse, you get the opportunity to make a detailed drawing. First, outline the shape of the head with the simplest lines.

Then take as a measure the distance between two points: for example, from the top of the head to the point where the head goes to the neck - line A in the figure on the left.

Use this value as a measure in constructing the remaining proportions of the head.

Angle Check

In addition to checking the relationships between the individual parts of the drawing, you must ensure that the angles are correct. This can be done by holding the pencil vertically in front of you and moving it in that position along the horse’s body.

Look down the pencil, noting under which fragility to the vertical line there are different parts of the horse’s body.

Rope with cargo

Most often it is advised to check the scaffolds with a rope with a load. Make it very simple - just tie a small load to a thin rope or a strong thread. And then all that matters is that you lift it on a rope, and then this simple device will show a real vertical line. This method is more accurate than the pencil method, but it has a drawback when moving the thread from one part of the body to the other, both hands are occupied, since you have to hold the load to prevent it from swinging from side to side.