Wildlife Art – Realistic Graphite Pencil Drawing – Shetland Pony
There a few animals so universally beloved as the horse. It seems almost every country or region on earth has its own trademark breed from the elegant Arabian that was bred to survive in a harsh desert climate to the proud and free Mustangs of North America. Of course Canada too has its hallmark breed the beautiful “Canadien” which I hope to feature in a future blog.
Today though I’d like to spotlight the Shetland Pony. The Shetland pony as its name implies originated on the Shetland Isles. It is an ancient breed long admired for its intelligence as well as its strength. They thrived in the harsh climate of the Shetland Isles. While researching for this article I was surprised to find that miniature Shetland ponies are being used as guide animals in the same role as guide dogs, a testimony to their intelligence.
Although Shetland comes in many colours, these two ponies were white which presented a challenge in itself. When drawing in shades of grey, white can only be represented by drawing the shadows between the hair. These ponies had been living outdoors. They still bore their thick winter coats and their manes were beautifully and hopelessly tangled! It was pure joy for me to try to depict that impossibly complicated labyrinth of hair masquerading as a mane!!
Some drawings are just plain fun to do. I think that I smiled throughout the whole long painstaking process of drawing these two charmers. Many thanks to Janelle Shane for giving me her generous permission to use her photos as reference for these drawings.
