How to Draw a Horse

With a horse sanctuary in my neighborhood, I have no excuse not to stretch my drawing skill. Whether drawing a tree or a horse, if one can see the shape of the subject, that's half the drawing. I like to lay down a general outline of the  shape onto tone paper. For this sketch, a soft 8B pencil on pastel paper gives me  nice grey shades when I do a little rubbing over the lead. 

I use a kneaded eraser to lift off some of the grey to indicate the muscle of the horse. Just a little light is enough to show the forms.

The final step for this sketch is the high light. I use a white conte pencil to show the sun light falling on the horse.

behind the wheels, my car as my studio

HORSE PORTRAIT

Painting any portrait without a good reference is like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. If this is a perfect world, I would have the luxury of time to study & paint the horse. This aging horse is definately not in his prime. With limited picture reference, I wind up having to refer to GEORGE STUBBS(1724-1806)"Pumpkin" at the Yale Center for British Art. I'm continuing to build the beautiful form of this horse portrait by pushing both the light & dark.