Alexander Calder, the renowned sculptor and inventor of mobiles, here
brings his characteristic simplicity of line and spirit of movement to
the art of animal sketching. The purpose of the book is to help the
student to draw animals as he or she sees them. Noting and practicing
the way Mr. Calder captures the emotions and attitudes of animals in a
few quick lines, the student can quickly obtain a lasting groundwork in
animal sketching that will before long become second nature.
These full-body sketches and enlarged details, in rapid, expressive
brush-and-ink, of animals from the farm, the zoo, wildlife, and the
home, in characteristic poses and movements, reveal both the action and
portrait aspects of the art. There are 12 sketches of horses in action
(drawing wagon or plough, racing, etc.); 10 drawings of cats,
luxuriously asleep or alertly watchful, stretching or crouching; 14
drawings of dogs (many different breeds) in a variety of poses ― lying
down, sleeping, sitting, running, sniffing the air, feeding puppies; 11
drawings of lions and other big cats, pacing, lying down, or crouching;
7 sketches of monkeys, jumping and gesticulating; 23 drawings of deer,
stooping, sitting, running, etc.; 27 drawings of birds of many different
species ― owls sitting, ducks waddling, etc.; and 18 sketches of cows
grazing, sitting, swishing tails, and feeding calves. Also included are
drawings of seals, elephants, squirrels, kangaroos, and a bear.
Because of the simplicity of Mr. Calder's approach to sketching, this
book can easily be used by even the youngest of students. There are no
difficult techniques to master here, no roundabout methods of
construction, but just an insistence on drawing things as the student
sees them, with undogmatic (and delightful) assistance from an
undisputed master of the simple expressive line. It is unlikely that
there is any more pleasant way to study such a fundamental branch of
pictorial art.
Unabridged and unaltered republication of third (1929) edition.
