How to Draw Barn Animals

Barn animals are heavily featured in children's illustrations and literature such as E.B. White's Charlotte's Web. A favorite barn animal is the pig. Drawing a pig in a realistic manner can be accomplished by breaking down the parts of the pig into recognizable and familiar geometric shapes. This will allow you to add on details and flesh out the body of the pig. You can use this drawing as a template for making a series of pigs or in a lesson plan about barnyard animals.

Things You'll Need

• Paper
• Pencil
• Black ink pen
• Kneaded eraser

Instructions

1. 

   Draw out the basic skeletal frame. Draw a large, long oval for the body. Draw an oval for the head. Attach a cylinder to the front of the head for the snout. Make the ears with triangles on the top of the head. Draw the tail with a curly cue. Add legs with simple lines. Draw the feet with ovals that come to a point on the left hand side.

2. 

   Connect the head to the top of the back with a curved line. Add a small curved line at the bottom of the head and attach this to the body as well. Thicken the legs by drawing parallel lines around the leg guideline. Start these wider at the top than the bottom. Add a parallel line around the curly cue of the pig.

3. 

   Create the eye of the pig with a small teardrop shaped oval. Place this on the front left hand side of the head. Add curved cones on the back of each leg. Carefully eraser your guidelines.

4. 

   Ink the entire drawing. Let the ink dry and erase the pencil. Add in small wrinkles with curved "c" shaped lines around the ears and neck.

Tips & Warnings

• A pig can be broken down into several simple shapes. Check other animals and see if you can identify the basic shapes they are made of.

Resources

• Coloring pages of other farm animals that you can print out.