Something about sharks commands attention in a way that few other animals manage. They have been swimming the world’s oceans for approximately 450 million years, which means they existed before trees, before dinosaurs and before almost everything else that currently lives on land. They survived every mass extinction event since. Whatever sharks are doing, they … Read more
Horses are one of the most requested drawing subjects and one of the most genuinely difficult. This is not a discouraging observation. It is an honest one. The reason horses feel hard to draw is specific and fixable. Their proportions look simple until you are actually on paper. The legs have joints that bend in … Read more
There is a particular quality to water that makes it one of the most satisfying and most frustrating subjects in all of drawing. Satisfying because when it works it looks genuinely alive, the surface moving in a way that makes the whole image feel real. Frustrating because water has no fixed shape, no clear outline … Read more
There is a reason Optimus Prime has been the face of the Transformers franchise for over forty years. He is not the most powerful Autobot. He is not the fastest or the most technically advanced. What he is, consistently and across every version of the character from the original 1984 cartoon to the 2023 Rise … Read more
A turtle carries its home on its back, which is either the most practical or the most exhausting arrangement in the animal kingdom depending on how you look at it. The shell is the defining feature, immediately recognisable from any angle and at any scale, and it is also what makes drawing a turtle so … Read more
August has a personality unlike any other month. It is simultaneously the last full month of summer and the beginning of the end of it. The beach days are still there but so is the back-to-school supply shopping. The sunflowers are at their tallest. The corn is ready. The peaches are ripe. And somewhere in … Read more
Eyes are the part of any drawing that people look at first. A face can have a lopsided nose, slightly uneven lips and crooked eyebrows, and most people will not notice because they are looking at the eyes. Getting the eyes right makes everything else feel right, which is why drawing eyes well is one … Read more
Cats are one of the most drawn animals in the world and also one of the most personally opinionated subjects in drawing. Everyone who loves cats has a specific cat in their head when they pick up a pencil. The orange tabby from childhood. The sleek black cat from a favourite book illustration. The round-faced … Read more
Dogs are one of the first animals most children want to draw, and also one of the most frustrating, because the gap between what a dog looks like in your head and what appears on paper can feel enormous on a first attempt. The secret is that dogs, like most animals, break down into simple … Read more
My daughter asked me once why lions have such big manes. I told her it was to make them look more impressive, which is technically true but also feels like an answer a lion would give if you asked it directly. The mane is the thing that makes a lion immediately recognisable from any angle … Read more