How to learn to draw a dog:
#3 
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Work from nature
If you go outside to look for suitable four-legged "sitters", restrict yourself to a start with one visual material. So, if you prefer to draw with a pencil, take one medium hard pencil with you (say, B), a sharpener and, of course, an sketchbook. You don’t need an eraser: if you see that you made a mistake and drew a line there, just draw it in the right place. If necessary, you will erase the extra lines later, as this shows where you made a mistake and how you corrected the mistake later. After all, all this makes up the learning process.
Subsequently, you will be able to replenish your "gentleman’s set" - as you gain experience and confidence. In the meantime, do not hang yourself with excess items until you try all the materials at your fingertips at home and choose what you like the most.
Traffic
The movements of a running or jumping dog cannot be traced by the eye: they are too fast. For this reason, they cannot be drawn from nature. The fastest moving dog legs. Their position is constantly changing, and, in essence, this happens in strict sequence, consisting of a whole series of individual small movements; In some ways, it resembles individual frames from cartoons. The human eye is not able to fix them - but the camera can do it.
Single frames
Before the invention of photography, people just had to guess how the torso and legs of various animals move. But now, with the help of a camera, video and camera, you can “freeze” the movements of dogs and other animals and, thus, accurately determine what is happening at any given moment; and more importantly, to observe how individual movements are coordinated with each other in time.
Consider a series of photographs taken with a camera that sports photographers use — it automatically photographs individual frames in quick succession. The result was interesting - a series of frames that clearly show a series of movements that the dog performs, jumping on its hind legs high in the air to catch the ball.
Drawing from memory
If you are drawing from nature, follow this rule: for a while, just watch the dog and do not draw anything. Then, while you have fresh information stored in your brain, quickly transfer everything you can remember to the paper.
Rhythms of movement
When portraying a moving dog, try not to think about the quality of your work, do not strive for excellence. Consider this exercise for you, and your goal is to convey the essence of the movement of the dog’s body. Follow the rhythms of her body - the smooth rise of lines and angles. If you can catch these rhythms, direct your efforts primarily to the depiction of the basic forms; details, if required, you can always finish later.
Wide and free
If you pay too much attention to details, it will distract you from the main signs of movement. In order to correctly convey the general dynamics and to fill your lines extremely with movement, draw quickly - and broadly. Then your hand will gain freedom and you will create dynamic lines. However, try to choose a scale that is convenient for you: if you force yourself to draw unnaturally broadly, this will not liberate your style, but will fetter it even more.
Draw in parts
Instead of drawing the whole dog, you can, if you want, first turn your attention to certain parts of its body. So, you can study how the front foot bends and how the dog changes when walking the angle between the upper and lower legs. Observe the angle between the head and neck. When you feel more confident, grasp the whole body as a whole - remembering, as always, that the drawing needs to be built starting from the main shapes, lines and catch.
If you stick to this system, then over time your observation, memory and knowledge of the dog’s anatomy will improve significantly and allow you - fairly accurately - to depict moving dogs with different body shapes.
New angle
When you feel more confident in the transmission of movement, take on a new task - try to draw dogs from different angles. Draw the dog below when it jumps to catch an object thrown up; or you can draw a dog running towards you or away from you. Here you will understand that it was not in vain that they were wasting time and energy when they learned to transfer individual parts of the dog’s body in motion. Now these skills will help you a lot.
Sketches
Whatever art or craft you do, the only way to mastery lies in practice. For the artist, sketches, sketches are a great way to develop hands and drawing skills and, as such, are an important part of the learning process. They not only hone your observation and vigilance, but also replenish your knowledge and understanding of structure and form.
Types of Sketches
The nature of the sketches can be very different. For example, you can make quick and careless sketches in your notebook, the purpose of which is to capture the movement. In other cases, these will be detailed drawings of various parts of the body, which later someday will be useful to you as a reference material when creating a drawing, and will also enhance your knowledge of the dog’s anatomy.
In a notebook, you can experiment with various visual materials and techniques, mastering them in more detail.
Working drawings
When making sketches, do not be upset if they do not always turn out perfect with you. Remember that sketches should not be beautiful works of art worthy of a place in a frame on the wall. Although some of them may still be very successful, it is still primarily a working material. Look at each sketch simply as an exercise, one of many of your steps on the path to mastery.
Memory selection
Here is a method that will help you improve your observation and choice. First use your eyes - look at the dog, mark the main forms and fragile parts on its body, then, while the information is still fresh, quickly draw it from memory. Do not look at the animal until you have transferred everything you managed to remember to the paper.
By making such sketches from memory, you will begin to understand what information you need to create a representative picture, and - just as importantly - what details you do not need. Often repeating this exercise, you will gain experience and will know what to pay attention to first and what to fix on paper.
Good practice
Try to develop the habit of always and everywhere carrying a notepad of a convenient size and several coloring tools around you - this is a good practice for the artist. And then, if you notice something that you want to transfer to paper, you can immediately fulfill your desire.
In addition to a good hand training, the drawings that remain in your notebook can be valuable reference material for you if "you don’t know what this or that part looks like and you need information.
The term “composition” is used to place various elements on paper in such a way that they make a harmonious picture that is pleasing to the eye. When considering the composition of your drawing or picture, it is useful to consider several general rules.
Decide what to include in the drawing.
One of the most important rules is that you should not include everything you see in your drawing. For example, having examined groups) - from several dogs or people with dogs, draw not all, but one or two figures less; this way you will improve the composition. Or move the dog or person to another location in the drawing.
By doing so, you will not sin against the truth - on the contrary, such a creative approach will make the composition of the picture more interesting or even wonderful. The same principles apply when you draw a single dog. You can exclude or muffle certain places in the picture in order to direct the viewer’s attention to some point in the image, for example, to the dog’s head.
Focal point
Any composition should have a point or part of the surface that attracts the eye due to some of its visual qualities or the location of the remaining elements of the picture. This is the focal point.
Imagine, for example, that in front of you is a crowd of people who came to a dog show. Everyone has a small dog of a dark color on a leash, and one visitor has a large bright dog. Your gaze will inevitably be directed at this dog, because it is different from other dogs; he is the focal point for this group.
If this dog is at the very end of the row, the placement of the figures will fail; so it’s better if you move the dog somewhere closer to the middle. This focal point can be strengthened, emphasized, making the clothes of the master of the dog brighter than the rest of the figures.
"Interesting" offset
Your drawing will turn out to be more interesting if this dog is slightly shifted away from the center.
A focal point located right in the very center may also turn out to be successful, but here you need to act with great care, think it over, otherwise the drawing will turn out to be too “head-on”, far-fetched.