Drawing Horses - part 2

Part 1

Now you have a horse of your own, the rest is easy because you know you have the necessary talent.

Now you have an outline, refinements can follow, up to a point where the detail does not look overworked. Look at the anatomy diagrams, and start to fill the body with muscles, by shading or painting in monochrome. I suggest soft pencil or charcoal, or acrylic or oil paint, because these are easier to work than water-colour. You can always add colour, chestnut, bay, black and so on later as a colour wash.

The attitude of the stance of the horse can be used to convey action. I use two positions for the walking gait.

In the first, the knee of one front leg is flexed, and the more it is raised, the harder the horse seems to be pulling. The other foreleg slopes well back and is rigidly braced, forcing down the fetlock. The hind leg on the same side as the bent one is forward.

In the second position, one hind leg has just been moved forward so that the hoof takes the place of the front hoof on the same side, which therefore has just been lifted. In both of these positions, the horse is standing on three legs. In order to maintain balance, the front leg on the ground is directly in the centre line.

Normally I only use one position for the trotting gait; here one front leg and an alternate hind leg are raised. Once again, the legs on the ground are in the centre line.

The appearance and set of the head on the neck is crucial, not too long and not too short.

The neck muscles are difficult to portray because they are constantly changing. With heavy horses they bulge where they join the back of the skull, and there are hollows immediately below and under the crest, especially in stallions of some breeds. Just under the head, the windpipe stands clear of the muscles but is encased in them lower down.

The so-called " knees" are box-like, more than halfway down the foreleg and a little closer together than the elbows. They are directly above the hooves which are slightly turned out and broader than the hind ones. At the top of the leg, triceps and biceps bulge out over the extensors and flexors, and the pectoral muscles between the forelegs are often very prominent.

Hair on Shires and Clydesdales, but not on Suffolks, Percherons or Cleveland Bays, masks the bumps of the fetlock and coronet of the hoof.
These drawings can be used as cartoons for sculptors, working in clay on a wire armature, or carving or whittling in wood, which is how I use mine.

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