
How to Draw Animals (1930) - hardmaru
http://dessinoprimaire.blogspot.com/2012/02/les-animaux-tels-quils-sont.html
======
DoreenMichele
The site is in French. It's possibly "blog spam" in that it points to another
French site as the original source:

[https://bibigreycat.blogspot.com/search/label/dessiner?updat...](https://bibigreycat.blogspot.com/search/label/dessiner?updated-
max=2009-06-10T02:31:00%2B02:00&max-results=20)

On both sites, the images can be clicked to enlarge them. You probably don't
need to know any French to figure that out, but I thought I would mention it
in case it was helpful to someone.

Edit:

This info is from the top of the article:

 _sur le site de l 'Agence Eureka_ = from the site Agence Eureka

 _(cliquez sur les images pour les agrandir)_ = click on the images to enlarge

Per another comment here, there is an English language blog it points to and
Wikimedia at the bottom of the page. The other French site appears to be the
original source, not Wikimedia nor the English language site.

It also says "Images on Flicker" and links to this, which some people might
like better:

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/taffeta/sets/72157618009562834...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/taffeta/sets/72157618009562834/)

~~~
cpa
And the URL means "draw in elementary school" in French.

~~~
jgtrosh
In _phonetic_ French.

------
singlow
If you, like I did, wish to have all the pages as a single pdf, I grabbed them
all and made one [1].

(I just googled and found a simple site to share it on, so if it doesn't work
or you have a better suggestion let me know.)

[1] [https://docdro.id/FFIBIrU](https://docdro.id/FFIBIrU)

~~~
wirrbel
Thanks for posting this. On the last pages it is said to be licensed under
Creative Comments Share alike. I'd assume that the content might still be
copyright protected by the original creator? So I don't think that anyone can
relicense it as simple as that.

I don't have a moral problem appropriating content that has been published 90
years ago. I don't think it is appropriate to assign it a Commons license
though.

~~~
sgentle
The cc-by-sa note in the pdf is presumably because that is the copyright
listed on Commons and Flickr.

However, the original work appears to be in the public domain. R & L Lambry
were a father (Léon) and son (Robert) who died in 1940 and 1934, respectively.
French copyright, as in all of the EU, lasts for the life of the author + 70
years.

I found this fairly interesting bibliography of the Lambrys:
[http://nouvellesuzette.canalblog.com/archives/2010/05/13/179...](http://nouvellesuzette.canalblog.com/archives/2010/05/13/17919647.html)

And confirmed with this information from the French national library:

[https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb32342632r](https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb32342632r)

[https://data.bnf.fr/10863941/leon_lambry/](https://data.bnf.fr/10863941/leon_lambry/)

[https://data.bnf.fr/16969919/robert_lambry/](https://data.bnf.fr/16969919/robert_lambry/)

~~~
singlow
Correct. Since i got the files from wikimedia, I wanted to adhere to their
license claim and give attribution. I was pretty sure it's P.D. but didn't
know if the scans themselves might have a copy right in some jurisdiction.

------
victor106
Couldn’t help but remember Picasso’s bull.

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/sorarium/8578925321/in/photoli...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/sorarium/8578925321/in/photolist-5WrLxK-6fSRMQ-
dh5a6F-9mfRY-8386qy-BMa4H-e56eBx)

Also teaches you about how hard abstraction is. You really really need to
understand the subject and the underlying dynamics to simplify.

~~~
codingdave
Many artists aren't trying to simplify an final subject. If anything, they
come from the opposite direction - they don't worry at all about the final
object - just look at it. Look at its lines. Mark out the major shapes. And
there you have your abstraction. Now if you want to finish it, keep adding the
next layer of detail. Mark out the smaller shapes. Mark out lines and
endpoints. Start filling in some shading. Then add some texture.

In other words, you start from a simple abstract and fill in. And most of the
'how to draw' sketches from the original post do exactly that.

~~~
anonymfus
It's interesting to compare how theatre went from scripted shows to improv.
Soon painters will ask audience members to draw some random shape for them to
start.

~~~
ZeikJT
I love doing this when doodling. I can start with nothing, but often it is
more interesting to start with a scribble!

------
app4soft
This article has links to original blog post in English[0] + media folder on
Wikimedia Commons[1].

Think, link to Wikimedia Commons is better as source for images.

In same time, Daddy Types has more info about other editions:

> _Lambry 's instructions were originally made for l'Echo du Noel in the
> 1920's and 30's, a weekly Catholic children's paper published by Maison de
> la Bonne Presse until 1936. [Bonne Presse was owned by Bayard, which is in
> turn owned by the Augustines. These images come from an unsold set of 51
> editions of l'Echo du Noel from 1931 on eBay.fr_[2] _.]_

> _A Spanish translation [Los Animals tul cual] came out in 1941, but so far
> the earliest French edition of Les Animaux tel qu 'ils sont I've found
> mentioned is from 1949. [The authors are listed as R. y L. Lambry, so
> someone--a brother or wife, perhaps--is getting shortchanged on her credit
> for the book. Desole', madame.] The 1959 edition_[3] _has a whopping 200
> pages and promises to teach this "reputedly difficult subject [sujet réputé
> difficile]" in just 95 simple lessons. Et voila!_

Funny, I has similar 50-page book «Noah, teach us how to draw animals»[4]
(Moscow: 1990, 1992) by Zheli Terez(?) in Russian (rus. Желли Терез. Ной,
научи нас рисовать животных - М.: Рудомино, Цицеро 1990; Деймос, 1992. - 50
с.), but not sure what used as source for this book.

[0]
[http://daddytypes.com/2009/05/13/how_to_draw_animals_the_rob...](http://daddytypes.com/2009/05/13/how_to_draw_animals_the_robert_lambry_way.php)

[1]
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Les_Animaux_tels...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Les_Animaux_tels_qu%27ils_sont)

[2]
[http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/709-53476-19255-0/1?icep_ff3=2...](http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/709-53476-19255-0/1?icep_ff3=2&pub=5574636946&toolid=10001&campid=5335844480&customid=&icep_item=270369722888&ipn=psmain&icep_vectorid=229480&kwid=902099&mtid=824&kw=lg)

[3] [http://www.livre-rare-book.com/Matieres/pd/8375.html](http://www.livre-
rare-book.com/Matieres/pd/8375.html)

[4]
[https://www.liveinternet.ru/users/ksu11111/post414036566/](https://www.liveinternet.ru/users/ksu11111/post414036566/)

------
seeken
We play a great party game called 'Six Second Animals.' The caller names an
animal and counts down from 6. Other players draw the animal. The caller picks
a favorite and that drawer becomes caller.

~~~
pravj
Neat! check out Google's Quick Draw [1] where you need to draw a given object
in 20 seconds and a neural network will recognize what you're drawing.

[1] [https://quickdraw.withgoogle.com/](https://quickdraw.withgoogle.com/)

~~~
Yajirobe
I mean it literally asks you to draw the thing to be recognized.

It would be more impressive if you were to draw freely and the neural network
would recognize whatever you drew.

~~~
avian
That game wouldn't generate labeled training data for their machine vision
algorithms, which I'm sure is the whole point.

------
dmos62
I don't know about you, but I hate this cerebral type drawing, where you take
a subject, analyse, restructure and reduce it into some components, etc. It's
no fun and uses faculties that I want to rest when drawing. If I draw like
this, what happens in my head is pretty much the same as when I work. I'd
definitely not teach kids to draw this way. If anyone is interested in
alternatives, check out Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty
Edwards [0][1]. First edition came out quite a long time ago, and it has some
popular neuroscience sprinkled in there from that time, but if you get through
that, the actual learning material is very good. You'll be surprised how
effective it is.

[0] [https://www.drawright.com/](https://www.drawright.com/) [1]
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/1585429201](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1585429201)

~~~
jdietrich
_> I'd definitely not teach kids to draw this way._

Seconded. Drawing from life is orders of magnitude easier than illustration.
You can learn to draw your own hands quite realistically in a matter of hours,
from a baseline of nothing. Learning to draw a realistic human hand from
memory takes years of study and practice; you need to memorise every bone,
muscle and tendon, you need to understand the elasticity of skin, you need a
deep intuitive understanding of perspective. If you're drawing from life,
you're just transcribing lines, shapes and shading - it's basically tracing
with your eyes.

Our visual memory is really very poor, because it's evolutionarily tuned to
remember rough silhouettes and distinguishing characteristics rather than a
complete and detailed image. People who _can_ remember images in photographic
detail are invariably autistic and invariably have serious difficulties in
coping with normal life - the highly lossy compression most of us apply to
sensory information is an essential survival skill.

Most professional artists can't draw purely from imagination - it's a highly
specialised skill reserved for expert illustrators. They rely on reference
photographs, models, mannequins, preparatory sketches and all sorts of other
visual aids. Why would we try to teach children a skill that most working
artists think is beyond their ability?

~~~
dmos62
That's a good take on drawing from nature. My focal point on this subject is
how good it feels. When you get over that bump, which like you say takes
little time, you become so relaxed. I actually don't care about the drawings I
make, it's the state of mind that I get from doing it that I like.

"That bump" I mention is something like changing gears in your head to see the
pixels on the screen, instead of the text, windows, and other things that the
pixels "make up", to use an analogy. It's actually hard to even describe this
phenomenon; I guess that says something about how foreign it is to us. It's a
bit like, when someone is talking, being able to distinguish the pure sounds
you hear, and the interpretations you (involuntarily) attach to those sounds.
When drawing in the "naturalistic" way, you want to suspend the interpretation
or symbolisation of what you see.

The first time you make the shift, to me it feels like "wow, I don't know this
feeling, it's great". Then you have to redo it every time you sit down to
draw, and usually multiple times in the midst of a session too, because you
loose focus and fall back to the symbolistic-perception mode.

------
bluedino
Reminds me of Ed Emberly books and the “draw 50” series of books I checked out
of the school library as a kid. Draw a few shapes, fill in the blanks and
details, erase your marks...

Or traced the second to last drawing and then fill it in by hand. I was a good
“drawer” but you need a lot more practice to learn about perspective, shadows,
and all the stuff that makes your drawings look _good_

------
tgb
Some would say that is _not_ how you draw a (live) butterfly:
[http://emilydamstra.com/news/please-enough-dead-
butterflies/](http://emilydamstra.com/news/please-enough-dead-butterflies/)

~~~
kiyell
This was very insightful. I never thought about what the natural wing position
of a butterfly is like.

------
hbbio
Note that the works seem to be in the Public Domain, since the author died in
1934 and the copyright law is 70 years after death in France. However, there
is a co-author but no information is available on her/him which might extend
the copyright duration.

Another argument for public domain is someone translated it to English and
plans to sell it (at least on Amazon): [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Draw-Animal-
Book-Step-Step/dp/16315...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Draw-Animal-Book-Step-
Step/dp/1631598414/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1559812155&refinements=p_27%3ARobert+Lambry&s=books&sr=1-1)

------
heinrichhartman
Here are my personal top 5 drawings for lazy daddies:

[https://twitter.com/heinrichhartman/status/11365667071479439...](https://twitter.com/heinrichhartman/status/1136566707147943936)

------
anbop
There’s a lot of “draw the rest of the fucking owl” here. For actual step by
step instructions for drawing dunces, look at Ed Emberley.

------
Pamar
Thanks a lot to whoever posted this. I have recently started my new "(at
least) one drawing every day" stint and I am currently working on animals
(even if I tend to copy from photos) so this is very interesting to me.

[http://pa-mar.net/Hobbies/Drawing.html](http://pa-
mar.net/Hobbies/Drawing.html)

------
tigerlily
I showed this to my girlfriend who is an artist, and she basically scoffed and
said, "I'm not really into that. I was taught to draw what I see."

As in, don't even THINK about drawing those circles.

~~~
seedie
In my naive way I guess she has to abstract too, maybe unconsciously to keep
proportions for example.

For someone learning to draw without much talent, me, it is hard to know what
is important and what to focus on. To me it seems like thats what these
circles and lines are there for. Look at what is important and what
proportions they have.

------
z3t4
Drawing like most things, you get better by training. Once you can do basic
shapes and features you can also start to free draw which is fun and also
still useful in this age as you can make decent looking illustrations in order
to explain stuff.

------
JKCalhoun
It was a simple book like this that I had as a boy that got me into drawing.

It taught me to see the simpler shapes that things are composed of — start
there and build up.

It also caused me to begin to think about proportion when drawing — so that an
animals head is properly proportioned to their body, etc.

If I were granted a wish it would be that schools had the budget to create
books like this and outright give them to students to take home.

------
ubu7737
I think this is actually the best book for learning to draw animals. I've had
a copy for over 30 years, and I still like to go back to it sometimes.

[https://www.amazon.com/Draw-Animals-Perigee-Jack-
Hamm/dp/039...](https://www.amazon.com/Draw-Animals-Perigee-Jack-
Hamm/dp/0399508023)

------
calahad
this is cool, i'm about to be doodling some animals

------
spectramax
The fundamental issue that is hardly addressed in drawing by shape recognition
is that it gets the proportion right but fails to teach the inherent "3D"
structure of the animal.

The litmus test for drawing is to ask someone to draw an animal. If they can,
great. Follow up and see if that draw the same thing but now in isometric view
or from an arbitrary viewpoint/perspective. Imagine if you have a camera with
various lenses (24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 90mm, etc) which describe the amount of
foreshortening you need to compensate. Now imagine taking that camera and
point it to the object (animal in this case) and taking pictures from many
different angles and distances. You simply cannot draw these if you haven't
internalized the 3D form.

Check out Aaron Blaise (Lion King fame) who has a YT channel. His drawing
skills are "3D" so to speak. He truly understands not just static anatomy, but
the kinematics of how animals move and which muscles are involved. It is not
by chance you get to work as an animator at Disney.

This guide fails (like 99% of the drawing guides, I've bought many books on
drawing and they all sorta suck) to teach structure. It does well in teaching
proportions (relative size of parts of an animal) but that's not all you need
to draw. You NEED to know anatomy; even if you know anatomy, then you need to
be able to internalize the 3D structure of the skeleton, muscular volume,
understand foreshortening, line quality, overlap, chiascuro or shading, etc. I
have mad respect for caricature artists, because they know all this and then
have the license to exaggerate and modify the form.

Drawing is fucking hard, like insanely hard. I have spent more than 10 years
in learning how to draw. It sounds like gatekeeping but honestly, I spent a
whole year trying to draw basic shapes, doing coil exercises (See Sycra on
YT), rotating objects, drawing architecture and basic geometrical scenes, etc.
I would say getting an engineering degree (I have BS and MS) is wayyyy easier
than learning to draw. It is one of the most difficult things I've pursued and
the joy of sketching wherever I go is amazing. I still have ways to go, and
I'd love to post a link to some of my drawings but I'd like to keep my account
anonymous.

Also, you know why organic chemistry students have real models of molecules?
Because they need to know the 3D form. Same with physicians who play around
with 3D models and do real dissections.

Edit: Here is a sample of my early drawings (I did reverse google search and
nothing showed up :-) ):
[https://i.imgur.com/e4GgxFA.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/e4GgxFA.jpg)

~~~
iCarrot
Not everybody need to be able to draw things anatomically correct.

This guide IMHO serves perfectly as a material to teach children drawing as a
recreational activity. There's almost no explanations, only directions.
There's no exact proportion either, you choose what look good to you.

~~~
spectramax
That's a fair point, I went off of on a tangential rant then :-) What I said
bothers me deeply about drawing resources in general and I hope I can shed
some light. I also draw recreationally, if I were to follow this guide, my
animals would look horrible and rigid. Have you tried following this guide?

------
bitwize
It reminds me of Ed Emberley. Or Trogdor.

"S, more different S... Close it up real good for his head, then, using
consummate V's, give him teeth, spinities, and angry eyebrows."

------
dang
A small thread from 2017:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14120920](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14120920)

------
mtone
I really like the handwriting. Both serious and playful.

~~~
aasasd
It's an art-deco style, which is what the late 20s were made of. The entire
book oozes that look.

------
varjag
The owl is on page 29.

------
ncmncm
"Basic Bean Bodies".

~~~
all2
Link? This sounds like it could be interesting.

~~~
ncmncm
Old Kliban cartoon.

------
z3t4
Drawing, like m

------
splatzone
This is what HN was invented for. Fuck the Silicon Valley venture capital
narcissistic shite, let’s just share worthwhile things like this.

~~~
rocky1138
You know, I was just thinking that HN is truly the last site on the web left
where something cool like this would be at the top of a list, like something
Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web would have on it.

I'm so glad we still have this place.

~~~
spectramax
I’ve been here for a while and I am seeing it erode slowly.

~~~
dang
Everything is eroding slowly.

~~~
hardmaru
You've been keeping the whole site together for years

------
matt-attack
This is literally a meme [1].

[1] [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/how-to-draw-an-
owl](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/how-to-draw-an-owl)

~~~
miguelmota
True, the peacock example is very like the owl meme

[https://live.staticflickr.com/3549/3546657319_57861e46ff_b.j...](https://live.staticflickr.com/3549/3546657319_57861e46ff_b.jpg)

~~~
goto11
Not really. If you get the basic shapes and angles down, drawing the plumes is
easy. Just try it! A funny thing about drawing is that some things which look
simple is hard, and some things which looks impressive is really easy. Shapes,
proportions, movement and perspective is generally hard. Textures, patterns,
tones and shadows is relatively easy since you are just "filling in".

In the owl meme, some of the hard things (like getting the perspective and
angles of the eyes and face correct) is glossed over.

------
AquaLineSpirit
As per usual there is a subreddit for this /r/restofthefuckingowl

