Description
In this book, which is an extensive course in animal drawing, Knight offers an almost implausible wealth of practical instruction to commercial and fine artists, painters, sculptors, book illustrators, designers, decorators, and art students. He discusses animal musculature, bone structure, animal psychology, movements, habits, and habitats. He provides innumerable tips on animal proportions, the play of light and shadow, coloring, hair formation, feather arrangements of birds, scales of fish, how animals lie down, animal expressions, how a lioness bends back her ears when angry, and many others. Scores of animal categories are covered: great apes, tigers, lions, dogs, bears, cattle, horses, antelopes, sheep, goats, camels, swine, seals, rodents, young animals, exotic animals, crocodiles, snakes, fish, and birds.
This work will have to help both practicing artists and art students achieve more natural and lifelike drawings. Especially valuable would be the many pointers on how to keep away from stiffness and gracelessness in drawings of horses, deer, and other quick-footed animals; how to introduce the correct sense of bulk and power in sketches of such heavier animals as elephants and bears; and how to put into drawings of the cat circle of relatives, from the household pet to the African lion, the superb lithe grace and wealth of subtle expression that we marvel at in the originals.