Basic Dog Drawing - Golden Retriever

Golden retrievers are one of my favorite dogs so I was very excited to start drawing this. I picked this one as my fourth drawing because there were a lot of details which made the drawing harder and also, the position the dog was in was one that I haven’t tried yet. I drew this while taking a break from studying for finals. At that time, I was extremely overwhelmed and ready to burst into tears.

The book “Dogs Draw and Color” by John Green kept the steps very simple even with such a difficult drawing. The first step in the book was, “Begin by drawing a long oval shape for the body. Add a curved outline for the neck and head, and a square shape for the muzzle. Draw a curved shape for the raised paw; add the second front leg and the rear leg” (Green 15). This step was easyish. I always struggle getting the right shape for the body because it’s what everything else is based off of. Everything else went well as it was a simple outline.

The next step was just adding smaller details so it wasn’t that hard; “Refine the shape of the head and muzzle, and add the ear. Shape the raised paw. Add shapes for the rear leg, thigh, and tail” (Green 15). This wasn’t that hard as it wasn’t a ton of detail work yet My recommendation for this step is to make sure everything is in proportion.

The next step was sufficiently harder as the ruffles in the fur were kind of hard to replicate. The next two parts stressed me out a bit as I tried to make sure the dog looked realistic. The instructions seemed simple but they weren’t as easy as it seemed, “Refine the outline of the body and continue to add detail to the legs, the thigh, and paws, emphasizing the feathers outline. Add shapes for the nose and the eye” (Green 15). The instructions were very vague on “details” so I struggled a bit but it didn’t look too bad in the end.

The last step was the most stressful. Details didn’t get very much easier to do so I still struggled a bit bringing my confidence down while drawing. The details added in this part really made the dog come to life so I tried to recreate that the best of my abilities. The last step states, “Add more detail to the nose and eye. Draw the mouth, and expression lines above and below eyes. Draw in feathered lines for the fur, and finish off by adding detail to the toes and nails” (Green 15). Again, some of the instructions for adding details was vague so it was kind of hard to tell what they actually wanted me to do without looking at the picture.

Final thoughts: This was definitely the hardest one I have done so far. The details were extensive and perfecting it was hard.

Questions: If you had to draw any dog, which would it be and why? Would you draw this dog? What would you do to change the drawing?