ONLINE ART COURSE – BEGINNING THE RHINO CHARCOAL DRAWING

Having done the warm up exercises, drawing the basic animal shapes, it was time to move on to the main drawing in this project, the third in the charcoal module.

The reference photo is of two rhinos coming straight out of the picture towards you, one behind the other, and it is very impressive. The photographer was a brave man! What extraordinary creatures rhinos are! Anyway, Phil has “removed” the second rhino for this project and we are just going to draw the lead rhino.

The first part of the project was to draw the outline in preparation for shading. For this, he was using a charcoal pencil, but I preferred to use an HB graphite pencil which is less messy, and easier to erase. The whole thing was done with a pretty light touch, and it will all be covered up by the charcoal shading.

Working on the proportions was again a challenge. I tried to do as much as possible by eye, and only used the proportional divider to check what I had done, and I was then able to correct anything that was not right.

Others on the forum have uploaded their drawings, and I must say most of them are very impressive. This massive animal comes out very well with the boldness of charcoal! We will have to wait and see how I get on with this less-than-favourite medium.