Children's Drawing...Front-facing Animals

In the first class, we drew side-facing wild cats (Tigers and Lions).  In the second class we talked about dogs compared to cats...the shape of their bodies, their ears, their muzzles, and also how the sky appears to meet the land in the distance.

Now, in the third class, we talked about front-facing animals.  It can be difficult to visualize three-dimensional muzzles pointing toward us and recreate them on a flat sheet of paper.

Sometimes it helps to use visual guides.  In this case we used stuffed toes of socks and three ounce plastic cups.

Next we looked at models of horses and wild cats.  We noted the shape of their nostrils and nose in general, the difference in length of muzzle, the eye placement on the skull and the placement and shape of the ears.

After that, we used the stuffed sock toe skull and a plastic cup muzzle to make them look similar to a lion.  I cut the plastic cups so they would be short like a lion's muzzle.  We drew the nose and mouth on with Sharpie markers.  We used masking bits of masking tape to show the approximate eye position.

Then we repeated the steps to make a model similar to a horse's skull and muzzle.

Our next step was to draw a front-facing horse head, using what we had learned.  The students used those faces as the first step in drawing their pictures for the evening.