Galloping horses

For centuries artists had sketched and painted running animals with their front legs sticking out and the hind legs stretched far back. For instance ,when we look at pictures of Victorian hunting scenes,we see the horse, hound and fox all depicted in strange positions.

The movement of animals was of course too quick for the human eye to capture . Therefore the click of a camera did the needful. In actual fact, there is a cycle of many different positions for the legs of a horse to be in, when it is running. There is one point in a gallop when the animal is balanced on the point of one hoof.

I have illustrated just three positions of a galloping horse as shown in Figure 1. Study these before copying them. You may use a sharp HB pencil with a thin point or pen and ink. It would help you to draw on a larger scale. Then you could finish off with dot stipple.

There is close-up action of a horse in my drawing in Figure 2. This was drawn from a photograph. Notice the way movement can be depicted by the horse's flying mane and the way the jokey is crouched forward with one hand on the reins whilst the other clutches the whip.

Figure 3 shows the basic outline of a sketch before going into details. Practise as much as you can to turn out a perfect sketch of a horse.