I'm David Derrick, a Head of Story for an upcoming feature film at Walt Disney Animation
Studios.
Today, I'm going to teach you how to draw an elephant.
When you're done, I want you to share your drawing with your neighbors by putting it
up in your window for people to see, the balcony, the front door, the mailbox, wherever to participate
in National Geographic's Earth Day Neighborhood Safari.
Don't forget to snap a picture of your creation and share it with the hashtag #NatGeoEarthDayAtHome.
I can't wait to see your drawings!
Thank you for joining me.
I'm really excited to draw with you today.
I'm just going to draw with a pen.
You can use whatever you like to draw with and we're going to draw an elephant today,
an African elephant to be precise.
So African elephants are amazing.
They're enormous.
They're beautiful and majestic and I love drawing them.
When I think about drawing them, I think about drawing a mountain - a mountain with feelings,
and emotions.
They're so big and so beautiful.
Now an African elephant will have a hump right on its shoulder.
And then it will kind of have what some people describe as a saddleback, where it kind of
dips and goes down.
Then, you'll have a big pelvis here.
Then, a big stomach, kind of draw in kind of a big, round shape.
Then, on the other side of the stomach.
The thing that's great about drawing elephants, is you can be scribbly, because they're so
wrinkly it will looked like you planned it from the start.
So, don't be afraid.
Your drawings will look better if you have more lines in them.
I think that's fun.
So even though their feet look flat, they actually walk on their toes.
Isn't that funny?
There's a big pad under here and their foot starts right here and goes down into the toes
and that pad kind of offers them support.
When elephants walk, they kind of need at least two legs on the ground at any one time,
because they're so big, they're so heavy, so they need that support.
They are after all the largest land animal.
Now I'm kind of roughing in where those front legs will go.
Again, when you're drawing an elephant, have fun.
Be loose.
Think about just the masses and the wrinkles.
Have fun with it.
Bring strong forearms.
Go down to the joint right here and then on the foot and the pad.
Here we start roughing in the big head right.
Now you look for anatomical landmarks that will help you.
Elephants have a really big cheekbone right here.
It's also called the zygomatic arch.
And then it goes right to their ear.
And then from their cheekbone, down into the tusk right here.
One thing I learned while I was drawing elephants in Africa is that elephants, kind of like
us, are right or left tusked.
And whichever tusk they favor will generally get worn down faster.
And so usually, the elephants will have a tusk that is more worn out than the other
indicating the one that they favor the most.
I always thought that was really, really fascinating.
Trunks are so powerful.
Of course, there are no bones in the trunk, it's all muscle.
Bottom lip right here.
Now I'm drawing a tusk going out, curving inward a little bit.
Again, don't worry about having too many lines or having the wrong lines, it's an elephant.
He's wrinkly.
Let yourself have fun when you draw.
The ears are these kind of loose thin skin.
Let's draw this tail a little better.
So the way I drew it it's kind of hard to see that other tusk, but let's draw it in
there anyway.
Now sometimes, their tusks will kind of be symmetrical, but other times not.
And it can kind of be fun when they're not, because you can get kind of a different shape.
Of course, when you see big herds of elephants, they're led by female, a matriarch, an old,
wise elephant that can guide the herd.
The big males kind of live off on their own in smaller bachelor groups.
And then they'll come join the herd periodically and kind of hang out nearby.
But the larger herds are run by the females.
Again, use extra lines.
Don't worry about it.
Have fun!
Try to make this elephant feel wrinkled.
And do a little bit of shading to kind of indicate certain things when you need.
And then if you want, just for fun and good measure, if you have watercolors, or crayons,
you can add a little bit of color.
Now elephants, are kind of grey, but they're also kind of the color of whatever the ground
is.
So if the earth around them is red, your elephants will be red-ish.
Or if the mud is grey or brown, that's kind of the color they'll be, because they roll
around and spend a lot of time bathing in the mud.
So I'm just going to put kind of a light kind of blue-ish wash over this elephant just to
give him a little bit of color.
Elephants are amazing creatures.
They're so smart, so beautiful and sensitive to one another.
They're definitely animals that deserve our respect and our protection.
Definitely one of my favorite animals to draw and I hope you guys enjoyed drawing this elephant
today with me!
And I hope you guys will continue to draw animals.
The more you know about the animal, the easier they will be to draw.
So I would say, look up their anatomy, their behavior, and you'll learn why they have certain
attributes and things and you can put that into artwork.
Thank you very much for joining me!