Lovely drawings Aaron! Thank you for the reminders of how important it is to always refresh your memory of anatomy. It is nice to hear that even fantastic artists like yourself need to still study what they draw. Always truly an honor to hear your advice!
go to science videos if you can or look at animal anatomy pdf's and memorize. Its better to memorize skeletons and than muscles after. It takes time but is worth it if you plan to draw professionally.
Yikes, i feel bad for you @Dougann . Ik the person was trying to help, but studying from science books and pdf's is absolutely unecesarry when you've got all these beautiful anatomy books and e-courses nowadays made specifically for DRAWING. I hope you found proko's channel or Sinix Designs' stuff cause that's beyond amazing to study from.
@@maksimcho. I'm late lol~ but I'm sure in the end, both pdf's and e-courses are BOTH good ways to learn! Everyone learns differently, and the more information, the better! :)
Really great video particularly as you took us to the actual farm and showed us the animals while you were drawing rather than just talking about what to do.
Thanks for the tipps. I was out life drawing animals for the first time ever today. I was really overambitious wanting to study everything at the same time- including color. Needless to say the sketches didn't turn as good as I had hoped. But I learned a lot of things and I will do it again. Being up close with animals is always special. My favorite moment was when a young deer nipped at my T-Shirt and my sketchbook^^ It turned out that the moleskine elastic bands are so strong that they even survive a deer attack :D
I have no doubt in my mind that the first couple dozen times pros like Aaron here tried drawing animals from life out on farms and stuff, they came out laughably bad. Don't be too upset! Mistakes are good because you can focus on where you consistently messed up, then work on improving those aspects.
Total Trash Mammal Thanks for the reminder. Don't worry I won't give up. I know progress comes with training. I will change my process and try again. Next time I will keep it simple and do sketches of the poses only in pencil. I did this of a sleeping wolf and it came out okay. This way the values will be there and I could still add color later at home. I am sure this way I will be able to focus more^^
This video could be hours long and I won't get bored. I would love it if you post more live drawing animals from life, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who wants that. Thanks for sharing Aaron!
I also draw everything out of my head. My Grand kids are fascinated how an animal, people and landscapes magically appear from the magical pencils and brushes. Awesome video Aaron.
Absolutely LOVE your videos. very helpful and insightful. It's like trying to understand a person can't be successful in drawing ANY type of cat big, small , pet or wild until you learn that All cats have FREE shoulder blade joints that are NOT fused to the spine at all. also they are separate ball joints all on their own. This is what allows them to swerve around in the air from a falling position to upright themselves in order to land on their feet. as well as to be able to jump extremely high in the air. Thanks for all the videos you invest your time and knowledge into for us here who look forward to them!
Thank you for making these videos Aaron. I refer back to them quite often in my growth as an artist. Having the right equipment & sunscreen is so essential, and I would add that if you live in Texas like I do, so is water.
Couldn't believe when I watched this video I'm using the same 5.6 lead holder and pastel refill, I must be on the right lines. Thanks for your many shared videos Aaron.
Aaron, thank you for your teaching on drawing animals in this excerpt. I'm attempting to draw animals after being an amateur acrylic artist. Your thoughts & shared ideas are helpful for me to assemilate all else I'm learning as I practice drawing animals. It is my newest art undertaking. My hope is to learn to characterize animals for stories I write.
I learning so much. I drawing for class on the animal anatomy this week. In one part of our project we are suppose to gesture draw. I used the line of action website since I can’t go out to live draw. Also got t go back to make some changes to some of my figures since I accidentally used detail and form before I gestures drew. So I have to do they over. Thanks for the video it really helps.
Thanks for the helpful tips, Aaron! I've been wanting to start drawing animals now that I have a good understanding of the human form and want to expand my artistic skills. I'm sure I'm not the only one here who has little to no access to drawing animals from life (I have pets, my friends' pets, people in my neighborhood who I don't know with chickens, and an ice cream shop down the road with cows, but that's it), so to those like me with little to no access, I'd like to share a bit of advice I thought up: watch videos of animals. Of course, a big part of seeing them in person is being able to see them with depth, but if you have some good HD videos of animals, you should still be able to observe how they move and which structures protrude with certain movements. It'll allow you to observe how animals move when you're in an environment where things are difficult to learn properly.
Beautiful drawings and great advice! I have learned anatomy of horses and lions, it really made it easier to paint, since I draw with my brush. It helped me very much also looking at books that simplified shapes. Putting them both together and using constant measurements (by looking) I have made progress! Now its time to work on people! Thats a challenge for me, but one I will conquer!😊🎨🖌✏🖍
This is great! Actually, I could have used this two days ago. I headed up to the San Francisco Zoo for some sketching. But I've taken away some great tips, especially about studying the skeleton and general structure BEFORE doing the actual drawings, and drawing big. I will need to invest in a larger sketchbook....possibly a fold up chair of some sort. Thanks for taking the time to share your wealth of knowledge with us, Mr. Blaise!
Stephanie Wozny I feel the same. I went out today life drawing (for the first time) and I was overwhelmed. At least now we know. Next time will be better. If you want to get a good chair to-go there are backpacks with in-built chairs. This way you have your supplies and the chair with you at the same time.
Noreetha, thanks for the tip! I'll be looking into backpack chairs in the immediate future. And, yes, life drawing for the firs time IS overwhelming. But through continuous practice, finding out what works for your specifically, and of course, helpful guidelines by people like Aaron here, it becomes a little easier to navigate.
Best artist in the whole world! I really appreciate your work man, I bought 2 of your courses and Im really enjoying them. thanks Aaron Blaise you are my idol , and it's my dream to work in Disney too ^^
Hello Aaron I have a question. Some artists do what you do in order to feel and see the entire spectrum of their subjects. Other artists will photograph specific poses in order to capture the subject in the still of the moment. Is there any big difference in the learning process between these two disciplines?
Hi Aaron ... I like your art and you make me think to try to draw .. I have almost no experience with drawing from life specially outdoors .. I purchased a metal tin of Faber-Castell monochrome set that includes a 6B Woodless graphite pencil , Sanguine, black oil Base pencils , Charcoal pencil , brown and white pastel pencils with 4 pastel sticks black sepia sanguine and white .. But I don't know how to choose good sketchbook for outdoor. .I like that I can achieve better details with smooth paper, but I know that it is not so good for pastels and charcoal. . So what you think smooth paper or rough paper for sketching outdoors? ?
i was thinking. What if you dont have any access to real life animals to draw from. Would you say sculpting the animal (from foto reference), be another good way to try and understand its form and hopefully remember it? And at the end of the day, whether or not you managed to memorize the form of the animal. You will have a mannequin/sculpture that you can use as reference for your future drawings and paintings! :D
The reason why drawing from life helps is that when we watch something we get an image from each eye creating a 3D dimension, while a camera only has 1 eye so it doesn't stick in your brain as good. However, if you don't have animals then watching sculptures, documentaries and even detailed toys can be of help. You can spin it around, see how light and shadow hits and so on. With documentaries try to watch as high quality as possible to be able to see how each bone and muscle affects the skin, how they close their eyes when it's bright, individual differences in proportion, where weight collects on individuals (my donkey has an insulin problem so she has a fat top of the neck and ripples on the hip area and round but not overly round belly and still some skinnyness over the thighs and here and there) which can't really be picked out of imagination. Of course watching other people draw your subject of interest builds a library too. Maybe wish for a trip to animals for Christmas and birthdays? Or Google local farms and contact for a visit, farmers loves visits! Especially small farms. I searched "chicken farm near me" or "buffalo farm minnesota" and found not too far away! The buffalo farm probably closed down by now and I didn't draw back then but I asked if I could come with my camera and they loved that I was interested in their passion! If you are allergic you can talk to your doctor about this field trip if you think you need something better managed. Oh! And pet stores! If you ask you can probably draw birds, lizards, all sorts of things to practice the skill of capturing a moment! Then when you can meet animals you have worked out struggles and can enjoy it with less frustration!
Hi Aaron! these videos are amazing, theyve helped my art come on no ends. i have a couple questions however, when you mention scaling of the anatomy, would recommend starting with something like the head or torso and scale the rest of the animal accordingly? Secondly, when i get drawing Hard edged, non-fluffy aninals such as insects, fish etc the drawings usually turn out alright, as soon as it has fur (squirrels-rabbits) i lose all body form and perspective. is there anything you can offer to help with this?
Thanks Aaron, great video! For awhile I would just race around the zoo trying to draw every animal and it was just frustrating. Focusing like this will definitely help! Mind if I ask what pencil / sketch pad you are using? Usually I draw in small sketchbooks (8x5), but want to change it up and get back into drawing from the shoulder, but there's not a lot of good options at my local art stores.
you should still follow the basic principals, just without the legs. look at skeletons and anatomical diagrams of snakes and draw them from life. once you can visualise how the bones and muscles sit and interact its becomes much easier to draw. its all about practice and reinforcing the basics of anatomy
Lovely drawings Aaron! Thank you for the reminders of how important it is to always refresh your memory of anatomy. It is nice to hear that even fantastic artists like yourself need to still study what they draw. Always truly an honor to hear your advice!
its the simple quesiton of, where do I want to put what, we are not lexicons, we need reference, never stop using reference when ur able to.
Learning anatomy was something my drawing professor ingrained in us, and it's something I tell young artists when they come to my booth.
go to science videos if you can or look at animal anatomy pdf's and memorize. Its better to memorize skeletons and than muscles after. It takes time but is worth it if you plan to draw professionally.
google "animal anatomy pdf" there's a bunch of hits. I learned a lot from ellenberger' atlas.
Yikes, i feel bad for you @Dougann . Ik the person was trying to help, but studying from science books and pdf's is absolutely unecesarry when you've got all these beautiful anatomy books and e-courses nowadays made specifically for DRAWING. I hope you found proko's channel or Sinix Designs' stuff cause that's beyond amazing to study from.
@@maksimcho. I'm late lol~ but I'm sure in the end, both pdf's and e-courses are BOTH good ways to learn! Everyone learns differently, and the more information, the better! :)
Its such an treat to be able to hear all this from a real artist/pro. Awesome channel.
Really great video particularly as you took us to the actual farm and showed us the animals while you were drawing rather than just talking about what to do.
You're such a great person. Really, I've learned so much watchin' and listenin' to your videos. They're really precious to me.
Thanks for the tipps.
I was out life drawing animals for the first time ever today. I was really overambitious wanting to study everything at the same time- including color. Needless to say the sketches didn't turn as good as I had hoped. But I learned a lot of things and I will do it again.
Being up close with animals is always special. My favorite moment was when a young deer nipped at my T-Shirt and my sketchbook^^ It turned out that the moleskine elastic bands are so strong that they even survive a deer attack :D
I have no doubt in my mind that the first couple dozen times pros like Aaron here tried drawing animals from life out on farms and stuff, they came out laughably bad. Don't be too upset! Mistakes are good because you can focus on where you consistently messed up, then work on improving those aspects.
Total Trash Mammal Thanks for the reminder. Don't worry I won't give up. I know progress comes with training. I will change my process and try again. Next time I will keep it simple and do sketches of the poses only in pencil. I did this of a sleeping wolf and it came out okay. This way the values will be there and I could still add color later at home.
I am sure this way I will be able to focus more^^
This video could be hours long and I won't get bored. I would love it if you post more live drawing animals from life, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who wants that. Thanks for sharing Aaron!
its cool to hear someone talk about techniques that you picked up on your own through years of experience. like the looking away from a moving object.
Love your work. I like how you focus straight on your drawings and not have to listen to music or anything to concentrate. Love your videos
Davey the Donkey is so cute
I also draw everything out of my head. My Grand kids are fascinated how an animal, people and landscapes magically appear from the magical pencils and brushes. Awesome video Aaron.
Absolutely LOVE your videos. very helpful and insightful. It's like trying to understand a person can't be successful in drawing ANY type of cat big, small , pet or wild until you learn that All cats have FREE shoulder blade joints that are NOT fused to the spine at all. also they are separate ball joints all on their own. This is what allows them to swerve around in the air from a falling position to upright themselves in order to land on their feet. as well as to be able to jump extremely high in the air. Thanks for all the videos you invest your time and knowledge into for us here who look forward to them!
Wonderful words of artistic vision. Thanks Aaron.
Thank you for making these videos Aaron. I refer back to them quite often in my growth as an artist.
Having the right equipment & sunscreen is so essential, and I would add that if you live in Texas like I do, so is water.
I dont know why, but this is my fav video on the channel, i come back to it often.
Couldn't believe when I watched this video I'm using the same 5.6 lead holder and pastel refill, I must be on the right lines. Thanks for your many shared videos Aaron.
Aaron, thank you for your teaching on drawing animals in this excerpt. I'm attempting to draw animals after being an amateur acrylic artist. Your thoughts & shared ideas are helpful for me to assemilate all else I'm learning as I practice drawing animals. It is my newest art undertaking. My hope is to learn to characterize animals for stories I write.
Thank you SO much for this, you are my biggest idol and my passion is drawing animals, you've helped strengthen my skills so much!!❤
Hey thanks for the pointers. That's a great idea to study the form before going out into the field.
I learning so much. I drawing for class on the animal anatomy this week. In one part of our project we are suppose to gesture draw. I used the line of action website since I can’t go out to live draw. Also got t go back to make some changes to some of my figures since I accidentally used detail and form before I gestures drew. So I have to do they over. Thanks for the video it really helps.
Thanks for the helpful tips, Aaron! I've been wanting to start drawing animals now that I have a good understanding of the human form and want to expand my artistic skills.
I'm sure I'm not the only one here who has little to no access to drawing animals from life (I have pets, my friends' pets, people in my neighborhood who I don't know with chickens, and an ice cream shop down the road with cows, but that's it), so to those like me with little to no access, I'd like to share a bit of advice I thought up: watch videos of animals. Of course, a big part of seeing them in person is being able to see them with depth, but if you have some good HD videos of animals, you should still be able to observe how they move and which structures protrude with certain movements. It'll allow you to observe how animals move when you're in an environment where things are difficult to learn properly.
Thanks, Aaron, for a great video... great guidance on tuning up our drawing and observation skills.
Amazing tips! I love your work, congratulations! God bless you
that's a beautiful looking farm
This was very helpful, thank you! Your art is lovely
Beautiful drawings and great advice! I have learned anatomy of horses and lions, it really made it easier to paint, since I draw with my brush. It helped me very much also looking at books that simplified shapes. Putting them both together and using constant measurements (by looking) I have made progress! Now its time to work on people! Thats a challenge for me, but one I will conquer!😊🎨🖌✏🖍
Wow! Amazing video!!! Thankyou for sharing 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
Really enjoying your videos. I started drawing just 2 months ago and your providing a lot of inspiration. Great drawings and thanks for sharing!
Gracias!
You are an extraordinary artist & tremendous teacher.
Tank you for inspire us and giving us very good advices. Cheers from France
I think all of your artwork is beautiful.
This is great! Actually, I could have used this two days ago. I headed up to the San Francisco Zoo for some sketching. But I've taken away some great tips, especially about studying the skeleton and general structure BEFORE doing the actual drawings, and drawing big. I will need to invest in a larger sketchbook....possibly a fold up chair of some sort. Thanks for taking the time to share your wealth of knowledge with us, Mr. Blaise!
Stephanie Wozny I feel the same. I went out today life drawing (for the first time) and I was overwhelmed. At least now we know. Next time will be better.
If you want to get a good chair to-go there are backpacks with in-built chairs. This way you have your supplies and the chair with you at the same time.
Noreetha, thanks for the tip! I'll be looking into backpack chairs in the immediate future. And, yes, life drawing for the firs time IS overwhelming. But through continuous practice, finding out what works for your specifically, and of course, helpful guidelines by people like Aaron here, it becomes a little easier to navigate.
I'm really happy I found your page, it's helpful and inspiring. Great advice and some amazing work.
loved your teachings! thanks for your work! much appreciated :)
If you guys can't go anywhere to see animals you can also watch nature documentaries
I want to be a animator sooo bad thank you for helping me work at my dream I'm 16 and wrote a children's book
Aijahlon Yancy wow, that's cool, good luck ^^
Aijahlon Yancy I
Aijahlon Yancy whats the name of the book? :)
Just the way, not portfolios only own projects sell...
no
Very impressive.
You are amazing! Love your vids! Can't wait to see the next one XD
Thank you, master!🙏
Best artist in the whole world! I really appreciate your work man, I bought 2 of your courses and Im really enjoying them. thanks Aaron Blaise you are my idol , and it's my dream to work in Disney too ^^
Thank you so much! Your videos are really helpful for me. 🙏🏻
Hello Aaron I have a question. Some artists do what you do in order to feel and see the entire spectrum of their subjects. Other artists will photograph specific poses in order to capture the subject in the still of the moment.
Is there any big difference in the learning process between these two disciplines?
Great video as always! I'm inspired to get out and do a bunch of animal drawings from life.
Hi Aaron ...
I like your art and you make me think to try to draw ..
I have almost no experience with drawing from life specially outdoors ..
I purchased a metal tin of Faber-Castell monochrome set that includes a 6B Woodless graphite pencil , Sanguine, black oil Base pencils , Charcoal pencil , brown and white pastel pencils with 4 pastel sticks black sepia sanguine and white ..
But I don't know how to choose good sketchbook for outdoor. .I like that I can achieve better details with smooth paper, but I know that it is not so good for pastels and charcoal. .
So what you think smooth paper or rough paper for sketching outdoors? ?
i was thinking. What if you dont have any access to real life animals to draw from. Would you say sculpting the animal (from foto reference), be another good way to try and understand its form and hopefully remember it?
And at the end of the day, whether or not you managed to memorize the form of the animal. You will have a mannequin/sculpture that you can use as reference for your future drawings and paintings! :D
There are some live streams of zoo's and animals a like online, I guess that's the next best thing:0
The reason why drawing from life helps is that when we watch something we get an image from each eye creating a 3D dimension, while a camera only has 1 eye so it doesn't stick in your brain as good. However, if you don't have animals then watching sculptures, documentaries and even detailed toys can be of help. You can spin it around, see how light and shadow hits and so on. With documentaries try to watch as high quality as possible to be able to see how each bone and muscle affects the skin, how they close their eyes when it's bright, individual differences in proportion, where weight collects on individuals (my donkey has an insulin problem so she has a fat top of the neck and ripples on the hip area and round but not overly round belly and still some skinnyness over the thighs and here and there) which can't really be picked out of imagination.
Of course watching other people draw your subject of interest builds a library too. Maybe wish for a trip to animals for Christmas and birthdays? Or Google local farms and contact for a visit, farmers loves visits! Especially small farms. I searched "chicken farm near me" or "buffalo farm minnesota" and found not too far away! The buffalo farm probably closed down by now and I didn't draw back then but I asked if I could come with my camera and they loved that I was interested in their passion!
If you are allergic you can talk to your doctor about this field trip if you think you need something better managed. Oh! And pet stores! If you ask you can probably draw birds, lizards, all sorts of things to practice the skill of capturing a moment! Then when you can meet animals you have worked out struggles and can enjoy it with less frustration!
YAY NEW VIDEOS!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Where can I buy this pastel for 5.6mm lead holder refill?
Is it still beneficial to do this from video or photo reference for people who dont have access to a farm like this?
Really interesting way to consider animals, not something ive thought about before. Another great video, thanks :-)
Hi Aaron, What kind of pencils fo you use. I really like the thick lead pencils.
Nothing proves Aaron right more than the cave paintings of Chauvet !!
The donkey is like: " Draw me like one of your french girls"
Yay donkeys!! Lizzie approves! Very great lesson :)
Could you please do a feline or canine one?
does anyone know what pencil he's using? Like with the pastel "lead"? Is it a clutch pencil? Can't find it anywhere online.
Indeed you are a genius
Thanks a lot for sharing. nice work!
respect. i love your drawing
thank you, this was so helpful!!
Great drawings
You can tell he worked for Disney cause animals approach him. Great work and tips!
Where do you get a drawing bench like that?
Hi Aaron! these videos are amazing, theyve helped my art come on no ends. i have a couple questions however, when you mention scaling of the anatomy, would recommend starting with something like the head or torso and scale the rest of the animal accordingly?
Secondly, when i get drawing Hard edged, non-fluffy aninals such as insects, fish etc the drawings usually turn out alright, as soon as it has fur (squirrels-rabbits) i lose all body form and perspective. is there anything you can offer to help with this?
Wonderful video! Thanks!
inspiration every time and instrcutive!!!
cant thank you enough!
Thanks Aaron, great video! For awhile I would just race around the zoo trying to draw every animal and it was just frustrating. Focusing like this will definitely help!
Mind if I ask what pencil / sketch pad you are using? Usually I draw in small sketchbooks (8x5), but want to change it up and get back into drawing from the shoulder, but there's not a lot of good options at my local art stores.
So good! thanks for the video!!
This was a very good tutorial! :)
OMG, you're drawing amazing!! :o
where can i learn anatomy
That very beautiful l like your art
we finally met Davey!
What about snakes? I've been struggling to draw snakes. Snakes don't have what we have or what four legged animals have.
you should still follow the basic principals, just without the legs. look at skeletons and anatomical diagrams of snakes and draw them from life. once you can visualise how the bones and muscles sit and interact its becomes much easier to draw. its all about practice and reinforcing the basics of anatomy
Just me sketching the artist while he sketches animals
I have learned a lot from you
excellent.
Why do you write your descriptions in Third person? Do you manage this account?
great for learning
what paper is that
How can I reach you to show you my character drawings ? By email? Love your tutorials for drawings and the tips that you give are great ☺️
I wouldn’t mind drawing a nice ass all day either! Haha jokes aside, fantastic advice and demonstration Aaron.
Ok...that's funny right there.
Being a kid with an older brother who did taxidermy for a local museum was helpful too - disgusting - and smelly - but helpful.
Your left handed you really surprised me with that I can't write stickman or draw a stick man with my left hand
I love it
When you said {Ribs} "!!!!Now you got Ribs on my mind, I'm Hungrey!!!!"
You're awesome !!!
I'm pretty sur Davy is a professional model. You can't convince me otherwise.
Incredible! :)
You should be on Create TV channel.
its' so real!🐎🐎🐴
what mechanical pencil are you using???
ExpDave's World When drawing like this I enjoy using a dark blue prismacolor on newsprint.
hi aaron i think you have reply.
Put on sunscreen and bring sunscreen ALWAYS even when is cloudy. Your skin will thank you
first, great video aaron!
If you can't go to a zoo or farm, could videos help?
Thank you - you really helped me with my fears of drawing live. Did you show the animals their image after?
so what i learned to draw better is remember to bring that chair!
Great video second awesome
Any tips on how to approach a farmer you don't know...? Hey is it okay if I sit here for an hour or so to draw your animals?
Thanks dangela