Great Horse Drawing Guide
I haven't got a chance to really dig in deep on this book but I plan to use it in my preliminary drawings of the paintings I do. I like it...
Daughter likes drawing horses
My 12 yr old loves this book. She is horse crazy, like most young girls and has been drawing horses on her own for awhile. She got this book for Christmas and her drawing has improved. She likes the book.
disappointing
For those of you who were ecstatic with this book, I'm glad you found it helpful. Really. I am. But as for me, I will not be able to sleep tonight unless I tell you right now--there are better books out there. Do NOT spend your hard earned dollars (or your parents' hard earned dollars) on this book unless you have done some comparison shopping, or are otherwise convinced I am a rambling crackhead. That having been said.
I thought the artist's drawings were juvenile at best, as she tends to focus entirely on shading, and gives little thought to representing the horse's correct anatomical structure. I'm not talking nitty-gritty details, I'm talking glaring faults that anyone familiar with horses would find offensive. Granted, there are a few exceptions, but on the whole, even with the acceptable drawings, they're not what I would call inspiring, and certainly nothing I would expect to see in a published work. In particular, I found it unprofessional how she glossed over the hooves and lower legs in her drawings--they appeared sloppy and in some cases, horribly innacurate. I don't know if she felt like these details weren't worth her time or what, but I'm telling all of you aspiring artists, attention to detail is one of those dividing lines between a merely acceptable drawing and something outstanding. No matter how pretty your horse's mane, tail, eyes [ie, more exciting features] are, if its hooves and legs are shoddy and sloppy, people will recognize you as the fraud you are. Spend some time and learn how to draw the features accurately.
Now I realize that this has turned out to be a rather [long] caustic attack on the artist, and probably not very popular, because nobody likes reviews that say mean things. But I don't have anything against Hammond personally--I've seen some of her paintings of humans, and they're not bad. But equine art is a speciality all its own, and for artists unfamiliar with horses to think that drawing a horse is as simple as looking at a photo--it's not. So no matter how talented the author may be in other fields, she has by no means convinced me that she is an authority on drawing horses.
[As a side note, I did find the section on shading techniques--something common to nearly all aspects of art-- to be useful, and for that reason I never returned the book.]
Learn from my mistake. Check out a copy from the library or something, but don't feel like your life will be incomplete without it. Do yourself a favor--and I don't care if you just learned what a horse was or have been drawing for years--get something more comprehensive than this. You want to learn from an experienced artist.
btw, If you're looking for a reliable resource for your horse-drawing endeavors (presumably), I suggest Jack Hamm's How to Draw Animals(I like the section on anatomical proportions), and Sam Savitt's Draw Horses With Sam Savitt (I like the whole thing--Savitt is a brilliant artist). I've had Hamm's book for years, and my only regret with Savitt's is that I didn't get it sooner. Trust me, you can't go wrong with these books.
I reaaaaalllly hope this helps.
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