Coloring materials Time required: 20 minutes Drawing a Realistic Horse Make a drawing of the front of the head. Create the same form as in the illustration by drawing the head with a smooth line. Draw the neck and the ears. Draw two lines from the head to form the neck. Make two little ears. Draw the torso. Smooth lines should be used to draw the back, chest, and abdomen. Draw the front and rear legs separately. The horse's legs are slender and narrow. Continue to sketch the legs. Rep the last step, but this time adjust the leg position. Draw the tail. Draw a long tail with clean lines. The head should be detailed. Draw the eyes, nose, mouth, and bridle on the head. Create the muscle outlines. Separate the area on the legs where the coat color will vary. The horse should be colored. Use brown or any other color you like.
The structure of a horse's hoof is extremely similar to that of a human's middle finger or toe. When you grasp these fundamental principles, your approach of sketching a horse will make a lot more sense. 02. How to Draw a Horse Spine (Photo: Bobby Chiu) A curved spine does not create the curvature of a horse's back. In truth, the spine is very straight; the curves you perceive are caused by spinous processes, which are projections on each vertebra to which muscles attach. The spine runs closer to the centre of the neck than the back above the shoulders. Knowing where a horse's neck bends from can help you sketch a horse's neck in various situations more accurately.
When all of the darkest tones were in place, I added a few lighter grey highlights to highlight certain spots near the tear ducts and to give the iris more character. After I had the eye in position, I began to block in the basic bone structure around the eye with raw umber. I then used raw sienna for the mid tones and a raw sienna and white combination for the highlights. At this point, I'm keeping everything very soft and blended since I'm only laying the groundwork for the details to be added later. For this step, I'm using a tiny angle brush and keeping the paint pretty thin so that it flows and merges smoothly. For some of the bigger areas, I'm also using an old ragged round brush. This is why I seldom toss out brushes since there always seems to be a purpose for them, even if it isn't what they were designed for!
Because horses have dark, brown eyes, the pupil should be horizontal, although it is unlikely to be apparent from a distance. If you're sketching the whole horse and the eye is only a detail, make it entirely black. Only if the eye is blue do you need to include the pupil. Sixth step
