Animal Drawing: Anatomy and Action for Artists

Charles Knight is one of the artists from whom I learned to draw by mimicking his style and subjects [esp. dinosaurs]. The other artist was Dore', by the way. There is some "how-to" in this book, but Knight's art is enough reason to get it. However, if you're looking for a broad view on a larger variety of animals, the books by Hultgren and Hamm might be better for your needs.

Animal Drawing, Anatomy and Action for Artists is not a modern art instruction book with step by step demonstrations. Instead, it's a collection of splendid original drawings by master nature painter Charles R. Knight with tight, well-written short essays on drawing the creatures and using their skeletal and muscular anatomy to give them lifelike, accurate proportions. If I need to draw any animal, bird or reptile, I consult this book first. It's concentrated, very concise, lots of information packed into every drawing and every short essay. Birds, reptiles and amphibians are touched on. Representative examples of every general type of animal are included, although every time I go through it I find myself wishing he'd done about three or four volumes and gone into more different species. Charles R. Knight is the muralist responsible for many of the gorgeous dinosaur and prehistoric life paintings in natural history museums across the country. I first found his paintings at Chicago's Field Museum, but there are more in the Smithsonian and in Toronto and many other museums. His work is brilliant and gorgeous. Some of it has been rendered obsolete by modern dinosaur discoveries, but his mammals extinct and otherwise are still accurate and lifelike. I have been studying this book since my twenties and still not run out of times I need to go back and reference it for cat joints, birds' wings or cow proportions. A must-have for anyone who likes drawing and painting animals, a fun read for anyone who enjoys natural history. When my copy gets battered and starts losing pages, I replace it and pass the ratty one on to a student. I've done this three times and my fourth copy is starting to show wear.