How To Draw Horses

How Draw Horses!?!? Where to begin if you want to learn to draw horses well? It's a question that I've pondered for some time, and I do believe I have a good beginning...

There's their unique anatomy to consider. Equids are notoriously difficult to draw well. More than the average animal. Get the proportions wrong and they look very, very silly. Horses are so tricky in fact, that even though people lived with them for centuries, it was not until the invention of photography that artists began to produce anatomically correct horses. Just think of all those old paintings of ridiculous looking racehorses floating in the air while 'running'. The notable exception was one George Stubbs. And what did he do differently? He studied equine anatomy. Gruesomely.

On a closely related note is conformation. Which is how close to the ideal a particular horse's anatomy fits together. Horse breeds vary in conformational characteristics. For an obvious example, draught horses have heavy heads and Arabians dished heads. Less obvious, Standardbreds tend to be long backed and straight shouldered, and Shetlands tend to be pigeon toed. It's well worth swotting up on horse confirmation so that the breed you are trying to depict actually looks like it's supposed to.

The other reason for learning all about the conformation is so that the horses you draw are sound. Eh? What she talking about? Sickle hocks. Back at the knee. Post legs. Straight pasterns. Roach back. Downhill. All faults to avoid in a real live horse-buying situation. And all (or any) would look pretty silly in a glamorous equine study.

From mooching about online, it seems to me that the majority of mistakes made by people asking "how draw horses" is one of not enough anatomical research. There seems to be a tendency to find one beautiful, inspiring photo and to copy this diligently. While I am sure this is a decent way to learn how to draw a chair, I do not believe it is a helpful way to begin with drawing horses. Please folks, take the time to draw out the horses skeletal structure. Then add some muscles. Work out how the bones move. And where they can't reach. Take the time to draw out the conformational faults. Some of them are really quite subtle.

Then, and only then, in my opinion... draw from your inspiring photo. You'll be a significantly better equine artist for the upfront effort. Remember, this groundwork knowledge will be with you for life. Done once, learned forever.