Horse Head Drawings.

Two horse head drawings. One is quick, fluid and impressionistic. The other is a carefully built up study. The first is an example of pencil horse drawings. The second is a horse sketch in ink drawn with a brush.

Using a coloured or monochrome paper can have a dramatic effect on the outcome of your drawing. Here I am using a grey paper. Use a 2H and 2B pencil.

The first thing is to make an accurate drawing of the subject. This doesn't have to be polished or highly finished but it needs to give you enough information about the form of the animal and any extra details you need. In this case I needed a reasonably good drawing of the bridle.

For a breakdown demo on how to draw a horse head see the first part of this tutorial on Horse Drawing then hit your browsers back button to return.

Here is a scan of the initial drawing.

1. Trace or sketch your horse head. Keep your lines soft and light. The 2B would be best employed here.

2. Sketch the bridle.

3. Use the side of the 2H pencil to add tone. I started with the ears.

4. Continue with the tone on the forehead, eye etc.

5. Carry on down the face ignoring the bridle for now.

6. Move to the neck. You will see the directions of the lines follows the contours of the horse.

7. Add to the neck and jaw.

8. Continue with the neck. I add to the strap.

9. The bridle now has a base of tone. That's all we need as far as base tones go.

10. Switch to the 2B pencil. I tend to blunt the tip and then add tone through overlapping lines rather than use the side of the pencil. I find this adds nice textures. I work over the ears following the direction of the tone already laid down. Note the lighter areas as light hits the ears. This kind of incidental details lifts a drawing considerably.

11. Use the same technique on the neck and begin the bridle. Take your time with this. It is important to vary the pressure to create changes of tone. Also the metal parts are much lighter than the rest. Similarly the bridle is made up of different tones.

12. Carry on with the face using the same methods.

13. The snout.

14. After finishing the bridle I go over the entire drawing darkening it. The way to do this is to use the exact same hand pressure when going over the lines and tone.

Horse Head Drawings 2

In contrast here is a very simple way to draw a horse head. This is a liberating way to draw and also helps with brush control.

I don't think there is any need for much explanation here so just follow the drawings. What I will say is I used a sheet of bristol board which is the perfect surface for ink and brush. I used a no 4 sable brush and winsor and newton black ink. Dip your brush into the ink and wipe off excess if you want to make precise strokes as I did in the closing stages. For earlier stages I didn't do this to get accidental effects.