Heather L. Gilbraith's Horse Drawing Workshop - Notes and References Booklet

Back in April 2018 I taught a workshop on drawing horses for a friendly group of artists and comic folks in the Alaskan wilderness. These are the visual notes and tips I developed for that class.

Horses are hard to draw, there's no getting around it. I created these notes with the hope of demystifying these glorious creatures for artists everywhere. This PDF features 19 pages of tips, breakdowns, simple anatomy explanations, and references that will hopefully make your drawing life a whole lot easier.

Page 1: Cover.
Pages 2-13: Hand drawn and written notes and advice.
Pages 14-19: Photographic references from our pal Muybridge with notes.

This PDF gives direction and advice on:

• Skeletal structure
• How to simplify horse anatomy
• How to depict a horse in perspective
• How to study photo reference
• Depicting a horse in motion
• Horse heads
• Horse emotions
• Horse legs
• Horse hooves
• Some common mistakes to watch out for
• References of different gaits (from our good pal Muybridge)

…while trying to remain approachable and easy to understand.

Thank you so much for your support!

Examples of some interior pages:

A detailed horse skeleton with comparative anatomy labels.

Examples of how to think of a horse's anatomy in perspective.

Examples of how to "block out" a pose and study horse anatomy from reference photos.

Examples of how to draw a horse head and ears.