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Draw Overlapping Animals

Use what you’ve learned to make a drawing featuring your favorite animal

You've seen how some artists depict animals realistically and others use abstraction. Now it’s your turn to try out both of these styles and complete an animal drawing of your own.

Materials

8.5 x 11 in. paper

printer

8.5 x 11 in. or larger tracing paper

pencil

masking tape

18 x 24 in. charcoal paper

soft vine charcoal

compressed charcoal

color pastels

kneaded eraser

fine-point marker or brush pen

Step 1: Select Your Images and Draw

Develop your realistic drawing first.

In this project, you will draw your chosen animal in a realistic way. Then you’ll integrate an abstracted version of the animal into your drawing. To begin, look for examples of animals in works of fine art and photography. Select two images featuring the same type of animal. The animals should be roughly the same size but in different poses. One of the images will be a reference for your realistic drawing and the other image will be a reference for your abstract drawing. Print both images on 8.5 inch x 11 inch paper. 

Using your realistic reference image, develop a realistic drawing in vine charcoal on a sheet of 18 inch x 24 inch charcoal paper. This will become your finished drawing. Pay close attention to how you draw fur, feathers, and scales. Detailed textures will make your drawing more realistic.

Tip: Since this drawing is in vine charcoal, pay attention to the highlights and shadows. 

Step 2: Sketch Your Abstract Animal

Create several sketches, experimenting with line, pattern, and texture.

How did the student who made this drawing use pattern?

Next, sketch your abstract animal. Place a sheet of tracing paper over your abstract reference image and secure it at the corners with masking tape. Create a continuous contour line drawing of the animal in the image. When you are finished, remove the printed image and use your contour drawing as a reference to make several more sketches in pencil on additional sheets of tracing paper. Each of these sketches should be more abstract than the previous one. Experiment with unexpected qualities of line, pattern, and texture. Next, place your abstract sketches over your realistic drawing one by one. Experiment by placing the abstract animal sketches in different places on the realistic composition. Determine which sketch and arrangement make the most interesting and dynamic composition. 

Tip: In your abstract sketches, draw the contour lines through the animal, not just around it.

Step 3: Add Your Abstract Animal

When you are happy with your composition, begin to incorporate color.

When you have selected one of your abstract sketches, incorporate it into your realistic composition. Draw with vine charcoal and erase areas of your realistic animal drawing with a kneaded eraser. Expand the background to show a complete scene, or keep it simple. Once you’ve sketched your abstract animal, add limited colors with pastels. This will help emphasize the foreground and background. Select colors that represent your chosen animal. 

Tip: Adding color to only one of the animal figures will create a clearer composition.

Prepared by Matthew Capezzuto and Monica Carrier with Min Wook Rhee, Ashcan Studio of Art, Little Neck, New York

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