For our last drawing project assignment, you will explore the fundamental elements of animal anatomy when observing wild animals and create portrait drawings

Wild Animal Portraits

For our last drawing project assignment, you will explore the fundamental elements of animal anatomy when observing wild animals and create portrait drawings. You can investigate jungles and rainforests in the Amazonian regions of South America, to Sub-Saharan deserts of Africa, tropical forests in Asia, and our immediate neighbors/cohabitants of the Pacific Northwest. The animals must represent a living creature from the wild only (not pets like dogs and cats).

Portraits must be drawn in frontal, three quarter or side/profile angles. You will create your drawings using colored pencils on toned drawing paper and understand the color relationships between the multiple layers of highlights and shadows when creating their portraits. You will research images online to explore photographs which they will use as a reference and create the drawings.

Assignment: Wild Animal Portrait

Artist References: Walton Ford, Cai Guo-Qiang, Kiki Smith 

Materials: Color pencils on toned drawing paper

Follow the link below to watch this video on Walton Ford at work:

https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s2/walton-ford-in-humor-segment/ (Links to an external site.)

Online Resources for images:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/ (Links to an external site.)

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/facts-pictures/ (Links to an external site.)

https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/list (Links to an external site.)

https://www.zoo.org/animals (Links to an external site.)

Learning Objectives:

• Wild Animals must be clear representations from the reference photograph.
• Use Color Pencils to layer each color on the toned paper in order to create highlights and shadows.