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40 Free & Easy Animal Sketch Drawing Information & Ideas

Ian
11 Comments
November 25, 2018
5 Mins read
My Post copy-23 copy

Sketching animals can be one of the most fulfilling ways to express your artistic skills. I have collected together some ideas to help and inspire you along the way. Here are 40 easy animal sketch drawing ideas for inspiration, with some ideas to try and help you and some talk of the lessons I have learnt myself.

I love animals, and I love drawing, so the 2 things were always going to come together in some way.

Trying to capture the joyous expression of that loving dog, or the scowl of a disapproving cat, can make you smile long before any drawings are finished. From rough single line sketches to photo-realistic drawings, you will never find a shortage of people who want to see your sketches of animals.

Creating easy animal sketch drawings can seem daunting, but as I have said about other things, don’t be intimidated. Break everything down to simple components, then you can put those components together in time to create any animal in any pose you want.

You can see in the pictures below that breaking things down in to the basic shapes makes things a lot easier. It will help you get the proportions right. Try to look beyond the detail to the basic shapes that make up the animals body.

img_6352
Original image found here

Table of Contents

  • Helpful Drawing Tips
    • Take It Slow
    • Understanding The Image
  • Look How The Animal is Standing
    • Imagine the Effects of Moving
    • Shading and adding detail
  • Making the Most of Your Pencils
  • Don’t Stress

Helpful Drawing Tips

Take It Slow

As always I recommend collecting as much reference material as possible before you begin drawing. Try and find as many pictures as you can of the animal in the position you want. You don’t have to do the complete drawing all at once.

Maybe start with a leg – draw it as you see it, gradually arranging the shapes of the sections of the limb. Then do several other sketches with the joints moved slightly further each way.

Original image found here


Understanding The Image

You can see from the sketches, breaking the image down into small, manageable and simple sections means the drawing will start to come to life really quickly. Remember with many animals, most of the initial lines will be lost behind the fur you will add later. So don’t worry too much about adjusting the lines.

When you are happy with the basic shapes, you can begin to add the more subtle shapes. Beginning to add the fur will allow you to start creating depth and 3-dimensinality into your drawings much easier

Original image found here

Look How The Animal is Standing

The eyes and the stance of the animals give you the chance to convey the emotion of the drawing too. Remember to keep them in unison, tired eyes on the face of a playing kitten will never look right, so match the emotion to the drawing.

On hairless or short haired animals, folds in the skin will give you the chance to create that same 3-dimensionality, but you are also much more reliant on shadow and tone to help create the effect.

Rubbing, smudging and partial erasure of lines and shadow can help to make the drawing feel more ‘organic’ and dark 3B pencils will help you to make the most of the darker areas of any sketch.

Imagine the Effects of Moving

Try to imagine the effect the movement of one section has on the next to capture that dynamic movement, so often missing in some drawings.



Original image found here

Shading and adding detail

Final shading can also be done in many ways, crosshatching the darker areas helps to push them back in the image. Whereas shading in a single direction can help you graduate the darkened areas more easily at times, as well as emphasising the direction of hair flow. Learning how to shade well can make a huge difference to your drawings.

Final details can be added with a very sharp pencil if needed. This can be used to draw attention to certain areas. It can also emphasise what may be very physically small, but important parts of the drawing.

Original image found here

Making the Most of Your Pencils

Using different sizes of pencil tip can also help create the texture you will need. Altering the shape by sharpening your pencil tip on sandpaper can help too. It creates a flat wider tip which can really help with shading while giving you two sharp edges to add any detail.

If you use a rounded worn down pencil tip and then adding small very fine lines on top of it is especially effective with fur. It is one of the tools I use when trying to create more realistic drawings, and the different grades of pencil and line size makes creating shape and depth much easier.

Original image found here


Don’t Stress

Above all, always remember to enjoy it. If you are having trouble stop, take a break, switch off for a while. When you return you will often find it easier.

Sometimes the fastest way to finish a drawing can be to stop and walk away. You may have that idea or realisation needed to complete your drawing, you may just approach it with a fresh set of eyes.

Original image found here

Either way, it is often better than struggling on when you are finding something difficult. Nothing shows up easier in a drawing than the frustration of the artist.

Scroll down for more easy animal sketch drawing inspiration.
Browse our selection of art related tutorials, ideas, and inspiration.

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. If you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases.


Original image found here


Original image found here


Original image found here 

















































































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Written by

Ian

Ian is one of the founders and lead art writer at BrighterCraft. A self-taught artist and tattoo artist, he uses his knowledge to provide you with the best painting, drawing, and tattoo articles.
11 Comments
  1. Sheryl-Kay

    January 13, 2019 11:54 pm

    Love the animals wish I could do so well

    Reply
  2. C. Roper

    January 22, 2020 6:16 pm

    These sketches/drawings are so helpful to the beginner, and to any artist looking to improve his/her drawings. Thank you!

    Reply
  3. Pamela Lewis

    February 4, 2020 11:35 pm

    Thank you the pictures are perfect for practicing for the newbie artist!

    Reply
  4. Ryan

    May 5, 2020 3:31 pm

    Just learning to sketch animals so thanks for these! Love the owl one! hahahha!

    Reply
  5. silvia

    June 10, 2020 9:03 am

    love the comment for the owl sketch lol

    Reply
  6. Maria

    September 3, 2020 12:57 pm

    Really helpful, I’m a very new beginner and am particularly interested in learning to draw bunnies, it’s slow but like you said take your time. Thx for the tips. Your work is beautiful!

    Reply
  7. Deni

    December 16, 2020 9:51 am

    Thank you. It’s very generous of you to share these. I know I will come back to them constantly.

    Together we stand!!!♥️

    Reply
  8. Shelly

    May 8, 2021 8:39 pm

    Thank you I really enjoyed looking at your pictures. And reading your comments. I paint rocks as a hobby. Give them away to put a smile on peoples faces and make there day happy. That make me happy !

    Reply
  9. Meredith Cupitt

    July 2, 2021 7:51 am

    These sketches are so helpful thank you for taking the time to publish them

    Reply
  10. mushtaq

    November 1, 2022 10:24 am

    Thank you so much for these useful pencil drawing tricks which are meant a lot for me… I also love pencil sketches and want to learn how to draw best pictures using pencil.

    Again Thank You.
    May love be always with you and you always surrounded with love….

    Reply
    1. Emily

      November 7, 2022 2:31 pm

      Thank you for reading on Mushtaq, Your efforts will help improve your drawing. Practice is all it takes. there is no magic about it

      Reply
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