How To Draw A Horse

 

This is Part 1 of a 4-part series on how to draw horses.

• Part 1: How To Draw A Horse Galloping
• Part 2: How To Draw A Grazing Horse
• Part 3: How To Draw A Horse Laying Down
• Part 4: How To Draw A Girl Riding a Horse

 

This lesson will teach you how to draw a horse!
Horses are a popular subject among professional and amateur artists alike. Many people love to draw these beautiful animals. They have been a popular subject for artwork not only in modern times but for most of human history.  You can even find horse drawings done by cavemen during prehistoric times!

This tutorial features a horse galloping from a profile viewpoint. This is a simple tutorial and can be easily completed by most artists regardless of skill-level.
Step 1
First thing to do is drawing the guidelines. These will not be a part of our final drawing. They will be erased later as we replace them with other lines in step 3 of How to Draw A Horse. They serve only as the foundation that we will build our drawing on.
Draw two circles to represent the front and back of the horse’s body.
Then add the neck and head. The head can be represented by a right triangle with rounded corners. For now the neck will only be a line connecting the head to one of the circle closest to it.

Step 2
Draw the guidelines for the legs. The legs of the horse are very thick and muscular at the top but get much slimmer as they go down to he hooves.
Draw the upper legs as shown in the picture below. The upper legs are curved shapes but the lower legs will just be represented by single straight lines.

Great job drawing the guidelines. Now we will replace these with the lines for our final drawing.
Step 3
Erase the triangle representing the head. Draw the head of the horse as shown below. Notice the angles of the jaw and the angle of the head halfway up his snout. We will add the ears and more details to the face in later steps.
The draw the neck attaching to the body. Draw the first half of the horse’s back curving with the circle guideline.

Step 4
The line representing our horse’s back curves into a dip but then back up again as it goes to the rear end. We can now erase the two circles we used as the guidelines for the body.

Step 5
When the circle guidelines are gone we can draw the horse’s underside. The front of the horse, at his chest, is lower to the ground but curves up as we move back to his belly and hind legs.

Step 6
Now erase the guidelines for the front and back legs that are facing us. Draw his legs. Pay attention to how the horse’s legs curve at his knees and ankles.

Step 7
Draw the two legs on the other side of the horse. We cannot see all of these legs. They will be shaped differently than the first legs we drew since they are posed differently at this point in the horse’s stride. Again, pay attention to the angles of the lines at his knees and hooves.

Step 8
Now we can add the ears of the horse. They should be placed the he highest point on the head.
Draw the mane and tail of the horse. You can draw these the same as I did here but feel free to deviate from how I drew them. Some horses have relatively short hair on they head and tail and some have much longer and thicker hair. Draw whatever you would like to see in your horse drawing.

Step 9
Add the final details to the horse. Draw his eyes. Horses’ eyes are dark but you can leave a small white dot to represent light bouncing off the eye. Then draw short line above and below it represent the eyelids.
Then draw the nostril and lines representing the cheekbones.
Also add crosshatching behind his jaw and on his left legs to show shadow.

Step 10
The last step is optional. Not all horses are a single color so you can draw lines to separate the different colors of his coat.
Once you have completed the drawing you can now color it with markers or colored pencils.

You completed the How To Draw a Horse Lesson. Fantastic work!