Drawing a Dogs Nose

Drawing a Dogs Nose:

A nose is a nose... is that what they say?

Whether you are drawing a persons nose or a dogs nose. I can tell you right away, its not going to be that easy, in fact the nose is quite a complicated piece of work, and reproducing it is going to take some time to learn.

Sorry... but there is no other way, the nose, as with the mouth, can be a challenge and something we will need to learn, as all our subjects here are animals so you cant ignore it really...

Am I scaring you now?

Don't worry, I still have my moments when drawing noses myself, so it is really part-and-parcel of art.

You are going to have your challenges like drawing a dogs nose, and also there are always going to be the harder parts of a subject compared to the easier areas of another. Its just the way it is, nature is full of variety, and we need to capture it

"I have learned that what I have not drawn, I have never really seen." ~Frederick Franck

Does it get any easier with the different types of noses, whatever species we are doing at the time, a little. Though you do need to practice and really study the nose for what it is, a work of art in itself.

So here we have a dogs nose. Notice on this fairly basic drawing I have done for you here, how the nose cavities seem to fold over on itself to create the nose holes.

You need to capture this when drawing a dogs nose, don't just make a couple of holes as the nose holes. Don't cheat....

Draw an outline first as I have done here and blend in the hairs around the dogs nose to give you some guide line as to where the nose finishes and moves onto the fur.

Now the shape is all-but-done, its time to start to get some shape to the nose. In drawing a dogs nose, you need to have a look at the different types of dogs noses that are out there, depending on the dogs breed you will find sharp noses, all the way to flat noses.

And don't forget the texture of the dogs nose either. It's different to the rest of the dogs skin, and looks like a surface, thick in texture and pitted, giving the impression of a smooth surface with its shiny more than not black color.

"By the way, my subscribers to "Pet Art Newsletter" get more in depth advise on the dynamics of how dogs noses are drawn.

That shiny nose we can see is caused by the dogs nose always being moist to the touch, so don't forget the highlights in color of the nose, that is mainly helped along by the reflection of the moist water that is always present on the dogs' nose itself.

Here we have a finished drawing of a dogs nose, when drawing a dogs nose, do you see how the highlights bring out the curves of the structure of the nose itself.

I don't really think that we appreciate how complicated the feathers of the dogs' are.

Whether we are talking about peoples noses or animals, until we try to reproduce it in art; it looks simple enough.

You may ask me as a sculptor too, whether it is any easier to reproduce the nose in three dimensional form, as it is trying to reproduce it in one dimension on paper.

I would honestly say that it is a bit easier, but by no means easy to reproduce it in any medium.

Just keep you wits about you when tackling the nose in art, and the best advise I can give you on this one is to sit down and really study different noses of the dog, so that you are imprinting more of an awareness in your mind when tackling the dogs nose in art.

You might not think that your study has helped greatly when you come to draw the dogs nose after starting a pictures of the dogs noses for so long.

And you would be right!

Well let me tell you, that it will be a whole lot harder if you don't study the dogs nose in pictures, and you are going to give your rubber a really big workout if you don't do some visual study.

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