Critique on cow drawing

Hi! Im looking for critique mostly on the cow. I been following a lot on videos from the academy o art from russia in their youtube, beside of books of anatomy and other studies to help my tecnique and ease thats why i want to know how does the cow looks for you guys. I base my first drawings on primitive figures to start with so i can get a picture of the proportions of what im drawing. I would appreciate advices! And critiques!

Hi! Im looking for critique mostly on the cow. I been following a lot on videos from the academy o art from russia in their youtube, beside of books of anatomy and other studies to help my tecnique and ease thats why i want to know how does the cow looks for you guys. I base my first drawings on primitive figures to start with so i can get a picture of the proportions of what im drawing. I would appreciate advices! And critiques!

https://imgur.com/a/WRnVkXY

Instagram.com/galierias

Instagram.com/galierias

• Galiciabaleria edited this post on December 4, 2023 4:35am.
• Galiciabaleria edited this post on December 4, 2023 4:36am.

Hi, Galiciabalerica, and welcome to Line of Action, and great job on recording your edges of your cow. I like how you made it look like a bovine critter, edges-wise. However, your work on it still seems too symbolic but too stiff. How would you like to go ahead with 15 minutes of 5 minute blind contours of bovines, followed by our interactive drawing tutorial here on our website?

As a result of the blind contours, as evidenced on the Nicolaides book The Natural Way to Draw, you can get more involved on drawing the subjects based on the senses of 'touching.'

The reason why you can and will go with our drawing tutorial is because, it will help you drawing quickly and therefore loosely with fast warmups, followed by a slow but careful 5 minute study in the end. (For lack of a better way to say it)

For more information, please be sure to pick up Drawing From The Artist Within, and Drawing From The Right Side of the Brain, The definitive 4th Edition and Workbook, and the former book I'd referenced. Please get these titles for the drawing exercises. They can and will be universally applied to your studies.

I hope you shall find these materials completely and totally helpful and concrete.

I am not an expert on cow anatomy, I can just say, that the hindquarters look perfectly natural to me, while I have some doubts about the physiology of the front side and head.

I feel like there should be some type of shoulderbones visible, to indicate how the neck, forelegs and torso connect, and the connection between neck and head also lacks definition.

It depends on your goal for the piece, whether that is actually even a problem. If you go for a children's book depiction, the flatness doesn't even matter so much, but then I would probably stylize the eyes a bit more to look a bit bigger and rounder, and generally try to fuse as many straight lines as possible into smooth curves for maximum cuteness.

If you aim for naturalism and/or perspective, the lines you chose for the front part do not sufficiently indicate the geometry in 3D. For example, the intersection of leg and head make clear, that the head is above the leg, but I couldn't tell, whether it is resting on the leg, or extended towards the viewer. I believe if the way the neck connects all the other animal parts was made clear, that flatness would be reduced a lot.

As I said, I am not an expert on bovine anatomy either, I just feel like my eyes keep searching for where the front shoulder would go, where and how the neck curves up to the head, and... shouldn't there be something from a right front leg peeking out somewhere, too? Can cows in that position completely hide that one leg by lying on it?

The tip of the front hoof also looks a bit off. Too small, or too pointy, maybe?

• Aunt Herbert edited this post on December 4, 2023 8:46am.
• Aunt Herbert edited this post on December 4, 2023 8:49am.