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Drawing Realistic Pets from Photographs
Draw gorgeous portraits of your favorite pets! Turn your candid snapshots into remarkable artwork that truly captures the personality of your cherished animals. In Drawing Realistic Pets from Photographs you'll find foolproof instruction that will have you creating impressive drawings in no time. Don't let a lack of natural artistic ability or drawing experience discourage you. Best-selling author and longtime art instructor Lee Hammond can teach everyone to draw. Her fail-proof grid method and simple penciling techniques have led thousands of beginners to undeniable drawing success. Twenty-nine step-by-step projects show you how surprisingly easy it is to render all your favorite animals, including cats, dogs, birds, rabbits, hamsters and more. You'll learn how to draw overall form and facial features accurately, plus the subtleties that make your pet unique. Capture every charming expression, every adorable pose in a work of art that you can proudly display and enjoy for years to come. With Drawing Realistic Pets from Photographs, it's easier than you think!
- GenresArtNonfictionDrawing
128 pages, Paperback
First published August 5, 2005
21 people are currently reading
72 people want to read
About the author
Lee Hammond
51 books33 followersLee Hammond is known as “The Queen of Art”, by her publisher, North Light Books! She is a prolific writer and artist, in a variety of themes. With more than 40 years’ experience, she is the true pro when it comes to art instruction, illustration, and forensic art.
POLLY “LEE” HAMMOND
Lee Hammond is an author, illustrator and art instructor from the Kansas City area, who now resides in Naples, Florida. Her career spans more than 35 years. She is now the Artist in Residence for the Rookery Bay Research Reserve in Naples, Florida, where she teaches art in a variety of mediums and subject matter. She is also the official artist for the Friends of the Florida Panther organization, and the Naples Zoo.
Lee Hammond’s passion is teaching, and has owned and operated private teaching studios her entire career. Within her studios she has taught fine art to literally thousands of aspiring artists.
Lee is also a prolific writer who has had more than 35 books on art instruction published by North Light Books in Cincinnati. She has been their best selling author for more than 20 years and releases new books for them on a regular basis Her books feature step-by-step instructions for drawing and painting, utilizing her own proven, self taught techniques.
Lee is also a forensic illustrator and sketch artist for the Police. She started a career in law enforcement in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1978, where she was trained as a forensic artist, and certified with Smith and Wesson. She continues to aid various law enforcement agencies by drawing composites of suspects, as well as reconstruction drawings for identifying John Doe cases. She is also an expert age progression artist. Her drawings have been integral in solving many cases.
She moved to Kansas City in 1981 to work for the Kansas City metro Police Departments and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. She then married. Raising a family forced her into a self imposed retirement from law enforcement in 1983, finding it too difficult to be on call with small children. She then concentrated on teaching and writing, creating a very successful career with a strong following of loyal students and readers. She wrote books on illustration, specifically portraiture, and continued to hone her skills and expertise in facial anatomy.
The murder of a young woman in Leawood, Kansas in 2002 prompted her return to law enforcement, and she volunteered her services to help with the case. When the case was not immediately solved, the TV show “America’s Most Wanted” was also called in to gather national attention. They created a show based on the unsolved murder, and asked for leads. Because of the professionalism of her work, the producers of “America’s Most Wanted” hired her to work on their show, to help them with future cases. The case that brought them to Kansas was ultimately solved due to her drawing.
She worked for “America’s Most Wanted” on many cases, and is also on other true crime shows. She continues to offer her services to Police Departments in SW Florida.
Other career highlights for Lee include working as an illustrator for NASCAR®, creating drawings and paintings of the race car drivers. Those prints were sold all over the country, and on QVC.
Her prints are not limited to the sports market however. Lee also creates beautiful drawings and paintings of many different subjects, including animals, scenery, and floral. Fine art prints of these pieces of artwork are sold nationwide.
Lee’s newest endeavor is branching out into other genres in the publishing world. She is releasing a motivational book titled REACH!, in 2016, through Balboa Press, a division of Hay House Publishing. She will be offering motivational speeches and lectures upon its release, as well as REACH related artwork, illustrations and note cards.
Lee is also working on a novel titled “Remembering Anthony”, which addresses teenage suicide and bullying. Based on a childhood friend who took his own life more than 40
POLLY “LEE” HAMMOND
Lee Hammond is an author, illustrator and art instructor from the Kansas City area, who now resides in Naples, Florida. Her career spans more than 35 years. She is now the Artist in Residence for the Rookery Bay Research Reserve in Naples, Florida, where she teaches art in a variety of mediums and subject matter. She is also the official artist for the Friends of the Florida Panther organization, and the Naples Zoo.
Lee Hammond’s passion is teaching, and has owned and operated private teaching studios her entire career. Within her studios she has taught fine art to literally thousands of aspiring artists.
Lee is also a prolific writer who has had more than 35 books on art instruction published by North Light Books in Cincinnati. She has been their best selling author for more than 20 years and releases new books for them on a regular basis Her books feature step-by-step instructions for drawing and painting, utilizing her own proven, self taught techniques.
Lee is also a forensic illustrator and sketch artist for the Police. She started a career in law enforcement in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1978, where she was trained as a forensic artist, and certified with Smith and Wesson. She continues to aid various law enforcement agencies by drawing composites of suspects, as well as reconstruction drawings for identifying John Doe cases. She is also an expert age progression artist. Her drawings have been integral in solving many cases.
She moved to Kansas City in 1981 to work for the Kansas City metro Police Departments and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. She then married. Raising a family forced her into a self imposed retirement from law enforcement in 1983, finding it too difficult to be on call with small children. She then concentrated on teaching and writing, creating a very successful career with a strong following of loyal students and readers. She wrote books on illustration, specifically portraiture, and continued to hone her skills and expertise in facial anatomy.
The murder of a young woman in Leawood, Kansas in 2002 prompted her return to law enforcement, and she volunteered her services to help with the case. When the case was not immediately solved, the TV show “America’s Most Wanted” was also called in to gather national attention. They created a show based on the unsolved murder, and asked for leads. Because of the professionalism of her work, the producers of “America’s Most Wanted” hired her to work on their show, to help them with future cases. The case that brought them to Kansas was ultimately solved due to her drawing.
She worked for “America’s Most Wanted” on many cases, and is also on other true crime shows. She continues to offer her services to Police Departments in SW Florida.
Other career highlights for Lee include working as an illustrator for NASCAR®, creating drawings and paintings of the race car drivers. Those prints were sold all over the country, and on QVC.
Her prints are not limited to the sports market however. Lee also creates beautiful drawings and paintings of many different subjects, including animals, scenery, and floral. Fine art prints of these pieces of artwork are sold nationwide.
Lee’s newest endeavor is branching out into other genres in the publishing world. She is releasing a motivational book titled REACH!, in 2016, through Balboa Press, a division of Hay House Publishing. She will be offering motivational speeches and lectures upon its release, as well as REACH related artwork, illustrations and note cards.
Lee is also working on a novel titled “Remembering Anthony”, which addresses teenage suicide and bullying. Based on a childhood friend who took his own life more than 40
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 20, 2012
I have some old photographs of a dear old friend no longer with me. There will never be any other photos and some of the ones I have are pretty sad quality. I wanted to remember "Buffy" with some fun drawings using what photos I had blowing up little photos into large wall size with greater detail. This book helped tremendously. Using the grid method really does work and allows me to "blowup" photos that would suffer from physically enlarging the photo by converting them to a drawing. And it had a side affect I liked. Buffy was suddenly back in my life and I realized I still remembered details of her face and body I hadn't caught in the photos. I can't really say I have turned into an artist but I think I could do much better using this book if I did the one thing this book doesn't do, make me practice. The more I spend time actually drawing the better it gets. No your first attempt at a drawing is not going to work unless you are really an artist already. The book really offers the chance to draw from photos but it will not happen over night, it is not a miracle book. But practice over and over and over some more and you will really create some wonderful drawings of pets whether still with you or not. And you can start to even change those drawings with different expressions and posses. It is truly a fun adventure and this book provides the missing piece.
December 27, 2017
I've read or owned several of Lee's books, so I have a pretty good understanding of her work and technique at this point. Lee's method relies heavily on blending techniques, I would say far too heavily. Now, let me say right up front that if a technique gives you the result you want, then use it, absolutely. That's really the biggest rule in creating art. However, many artists feel that blending can be too often used as a short cut, or to cover up an artist's lack of skill in a particular area.
British graphite artist Mike Sibley, who's animal drawings are second to none, beautifully deals with the subject of blending in his book (Drawing: From Line To Life), and he makes some great points, which are relevant here: blending is great for rendering smooth textures, such as skin, metal, or glass. It's perfect for these types of textures. But blending should never be done simply as a matter of course. It should be used to create a specific effect, where nothing else will do. The problem here is, that is EXACTLY what Lee does. She blends...EVERYTHING. It doesn't matter if she is rendering glass, fur, wood, whatever. She blends. But the proof is in the pudding, right? It's nice to have an opinion, but how does it hold up to actual artwork?
In truth, Lee does some pretty good animal drawings. Two or three in this book are quite good. But none are great. Compare that to Mike Sibley's drawings, or Lucy Swinburne's work in her book "Drawing Masterclass: Animals." The best way I can compare Lee's animal drawings in this book is to compare it to an airbrushed portrait of a person. You've probably seen airbrushed drawings before. They have an interesting, soft look to them, which can be quite pleasing. Most of Lee's drawings look airbrushed. Now, the problem here is that, fur and hair rely on detail in order to look realistic. Her overblending of everything removes most of the details of the fur, giving it an unnatural, unrealistic look. Contrast that to the previous two books I mentioned, where absolutely no blending of any kind is done on fur, and the subject seems to jump off the page. The detail is much more noticeable.
So, I think the bottom line is, blending is a good technique to learn, but I think learning from Lee early in one's drawing career will set you up with some bad habits that might hinder your progress in the long-run, at least as far as animal drawing is concerned. As I said, her method works much better with human portraiture, so if you are going to get one of her books, get one of those. For animal portraiture, I would much more highly recommend the previous two books that I mentioned, which will give you an extremely solid foundation for drawing most animals. Really learn what your pencil and eraser can do. Learn how to shade and do different textures, and you will see that blending isn't nearly as necessary as you thought it was. Keep it for when you really need it.
British graphite artist Mike Sibley, who's animal drawings are second to none, beautifully deals with the subject of blending in his book (Drawing: From Line To Life), and he makes some great points, which are relevant here: blending is great for rendering smooth textures, such as skin, metal, or glass. It's perfect for these types of textures. But blending should never be done simply as a matter of course. It should be used to create a specific effect, where nothing else will do. The problem here is, that is EXACTLY what Lee does. She blends...EVERYTHING. It doesn't matter if she is rendering glass, fur, wood, whatever. She blends. But the proof is in the pudding, right? It's nice to have an opinion, but how does it hold up to actual artwork?
In truth, Lee does some pretty good animal drawings. Two or three in this book are quite good. But none are great. Compare that to Mike Sibley's drawings, or Lucy Swinburne's work in her book "Drawing Masterclass: Animals." The best way I can compare Lee's animal drawings in this book is to compare it to an airbrushed portrait of a person. You've probably seen airbrushed drawings before. They have an interesting, soft look to them, which can be quite pleasing. Most of Lee's drawings look airbrushed. Now, the problem here is that, fur and hair rely on detail in order to look realistic. Her overblending of everything removes most of the details of the fur, giving it an unnatural, unrealistic look. Contrast that to the previous two books I mentioned, where absolutely no blending of any kind is done on fur, and the subject seems to jump off the page. The detail is much more noticeable.
So, I think the bottom line is, blending is a good technique to learn, but I think learning from Lee early in one's drawing career will set you up with some bad habits that might hinder your progress in the long-run, at least as far as animal drawing is concerned. As I said, her method works much better with human portraiture, so if you are going to get one of her books, get one of those. For animal portraiture, I would much more highly recommend the previous two books that I mentioned, which will give you an extremely solid foundation for drawing most animals. Really learn what your pencil and eraser can do. Learn how to shade and do different textures, and you will see that blending isn't nearly as necessary as you thought it was. Keep it for when you really need it.
February 13, 2012
yah boy!!! My favorite!!!
February 22, 2015
Awesome
Lee is a great teacher and artist. I always enjoy and learn from her books that I have read. She rocks.
Lee is a great teacher and artist. I always enjoy and learn from her books that I have read. She rocks.
September 18, 2016
its a great book.i gave it 5 stars because it really helped me to start drawing facial features of animals in a very professional way however i wasn't able to draw it before reading it.
Read
April 15, 2016Now I just need to put the reading into practice. Will follow-up as to how well I learned from this book.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews