Note: Some of these books are also listed under other resource categories.
 

HOW TO DRAW ANIMALS
by Jack Hamm

Good "page-packed" introduction. It is strong on comparisons between animals, and filled with insightful hints on what makes one animal look distinctly different from another. It has errors in it, the drawing style is dated, and draftsmanship is not Jack Hamm's strength, but the good points far outweigh the faults. It's worth many hours of enjoyable study. —mv

HOW TO DRAW ANIMALS
Famous Artists School

Very helpful introduction. If you can only afford one book on animal drawing, this is the one. It had multiple authors from the "mail-order" school, all of whom were competent professionals sharing their secrets. The general approach to drawing is the same as I teach in my course, which is to divide the discipline into three categories: Gesture, Anatomy and Form. The writing is clear, concise, unpretentious, sound and valuable. You can't go wrong with this book.  —mv

THE ART OF ANIMAL DRAWING
by Ken Hultgren

Inaccurate anatomy, excellent form construction. Hultgren was an animator, and his drawings are exciting as well as informative. People who care about accurate anatomy find his drawings maddening (I hate his gorillas), but for all the errors (he draws horses with flexible spines!) the gestural quality is so alive and the forms are so well constructed that I recommend it. Like most Dover books, it is inexpensive.  —mv

ATLAS OF ANIMAL ANATOMY FOR ARTISTS
by Ellenberger, Dittrich & Baum

The best dissection plates you'll find. They are amazing. The worst thing about this book is that the drawings are on different pages than the name lists, so you have to find the little letters on the drawings and turn to the page with the names... it takes a great deal of effort to find the name of a muscle or bone. But I don't know any other source that shows such authoritative detail. It will save you many a dissection to have this book.  —mv

THE ARTIST'S GUIDE TO ANIMAL ANATOMY
by Gottfried Bammes

Great pictures, bad text. Don't attempt to read it. It is contaminated with the kind of academic babble that makes every sentence as complicated as possible. But the analytical diagrams are impressive. Bammes draws animal anatomy with authority, and he is one of those rare artists who can draw with technical precision as well as wild expressiveness.  —mv

ANIMALS IN MOTION
by Eadweard Muybridge

Even though these photographs are well over a hundred years old, artists keep using them as a standard and classic reference. Muybridge obsessively documented animal locomotion with limited (but remarkable) technology. The fact that the pictures are gritty and high contrast is actually an advantage — there is no temptation to get bogged down in details or copy the surfaces. If you use them for reference and analysis, they are great for studying "anatomical landmark points" and big structural forms as well as motion.  —mv

DRAWING LESSONS FROM THE GREAT MASTERS
by Robert Beverly Hale

This book is not specifically about animals, though it contains some analysis of animal drawings. I plug it at any opportunity because everyone who is serious about drawing should read it. Hale understood classic draftsmanship as thoroughly as anyone in this century, and in this book he analyzes 100 master drawings simply, clearly and with deep insight. I've read it seven times. Out of some fifty drawing books I've read, it is the absolute top — a solid "ten." Don't confuse it with Anatomy Lessons from the Great Masters, which Hale didn't write even though they used his name.   —mv

THE WEATHERLY GUIDE TO DRAWING ANIMALS
by Joe Weatherly

Joe just put out the best book on animal drawing to be published in the past twenty years. Expressive stuff all through it, but he slows down enough to make each point about how to get there.  —mv

My Animal Anatomy Seminar is a concentrated course focusing on Anatomy, Form & Gesture — the three essentials for mastery. For those of you who had me as your animal drawing teacher at CSF or Laguna College, this is a review of that material. I don't teach it as a semester course anymore, instead I offer it as a four-session course that boils down the best of the semester.

Check my upcoming schedule, join my mailing list, or email me if you have specific questions.

How to Draw Animals (DVD)
Marshall Vandruff

It took over two years to produce this one-hour dvd that distills most of the material from my university animal drawing course. It is available as of January 2002. It is so concentrated that I don't recommend watching it in one sitting. The anatomy section superimposes the major muscle groups over a diagram of the bones - something I wish I'd had access to when I was learning animal anatomy. It has a number of demonstrations to help artists manage animal forms, including how to draw twisted forms like cat's torsos, and how to track limb movement in perspective. The advantage of the dvd is that you can go right to the demos you want and watch them over and over until you have it mastered.

Contact me for more information.