Farm animals have been a popular source of interest for centuries. Eighteenth-century Dutch artists started the trend by painting peaceful pastoral scenes with farm animals as their focus. Victorians also became enamored of farm animal scenes. Using a few basic steps to outline form and define farm animals, you can create your own enchanting pictures of farm animals.
Instructions
1. Set the photo of a hen up so you can see it clearly. Use the #2 pencil to draw geometric shapes for the first rendering of a hen, consisting of two triangles that overlap one another. Add a line across between the two triangles for the top of the back and then add another triangle for the hen's head rounding the outside of the triangle. Refer to the photo for placement.
2. Add lines for the legs and branch them off for the feet. These will be rough lines to start with. You will go back define them later. Draw a lazy "S" shape within the body for placement of the wings.
3. Define the head by adding form to the beak, comb and wattle. The comb sits on the top of the head and furls outward. The wattle hangs underneath the beak. The eye sits under a hooded area and is round with no white showing, just a pupil and iris with a dash of white to show highlight. Behind the eye there's another section of skin that resembles the wattle and comb in the way it is formed. Draw one or two semicircles past the eye. It has no feathers, but is sort of rubbery in appearance.
4. Place curved lines starting under the neck to form the chest of the bird. Continue using the triangular shape as your guide for adding more rounded curves to the body. The tail is drawn in an arch starting at the top of the triangle moving outward.
5. The legs become thicker and the feet more pronounced and curved. Hens, roosters, turkeys and chickens all have toenails, so be sure to add those. Their legs have scales that also move in a downward progression covering the toes.
6. Feathers, semicircular in shape, lay against the skin and move in the direction of the body. As the head shape extends into the neck and body, the feathers will follow the form laying one on top of the other in a downward slope. They can be added and blended by gently rubbing the soft lead pencil lines with your finger. Overstroke the areas again with the pencil to redefine the feathers if you want.
7. Use squares, triangles and circle shapes as foundations to draw other farm animals. For example, a cow would start out with a rectangular box for the body, a cone shape for the neck and another for the head. The legs would be smaller cones as would the feet. Define the forms from there. Using shapes to begin the animal will assist in keeping the animal shape in perspective.
