Drawing Wild Animals: Essential Techniques and Fascinating Facts for the Curious Artist

Featuring the delightful and informative illustrations of artist Oana Befort and the inspiring expertise of conservation educator Maggie Reinbold, Drawing Wild Animals guides artists at all skill levels as they learn to draw—and learn about—a diverse array of mammals, amphibians, and reptiles from around the world.

To feed your curiosity, you’ll learn the characteristics, behaviors, and habitats of animals from categories like predators, burrowers, grazers, marsupials, frogs and toads, and lizards and snakes. To nurture the artist, you'll get more than 25 step-by-step instructions that show how to develop each animal from simple shapes into richly detailed drawings. Armed with a deeper understanding of animals, you’ll be better able to capture their stunning beauty and enchanting attributes in your artwork.

Some of the intriguing animals you'll encounter:

• Bengal tiger
• Yellow mongoose
• African bush elephant
• European hedgehog
• Black flying fox
• Ring-tailed lemur
• Blue poison frog
• Gold dust day gecko
• Russian tortoise

With Drawing Wild Animals, you'll learn to see—and draw—animals in a whole new light!

Oana Befort is a Romanian-born graphic artist whose watercolors and mixed-media works are inspired by natural motifs and themes. Oana graduated from the National University of Arts in Bucharest, Romania, with an MA in graphic design and visual communication. With a love for fresh colors and details, Oana merges her passion for illustration and graphic design into whimsical stationery and paper goods. Oana has worked with major clients around the world for projects such as book illustrations, stationery, homewares, magazine editorials, and more. She co-authored Drawing Wild Animals (Quarry Books) and Creative Folk Art and Beyond (Walter Foster Publishing). Oana currently lives in Council Bluffs, Iowa. See more of Oana's work at www.oanabefort.com.

Maggie Reinbold is Director of Community Engagement at San Diego Zoo Global, heading up a dynamic team dedicated to designing and implementing programs that connect communities to conservation for the benefit of wildlife and habitats. She is also an Adjunct Faculty Member in the Department of Biology at Miami University, where she teaches the Earth Expedition to the Big Island of Hawaii. Maggie earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Biology at San Diego State University, with a focus on the population genetics of desert aquatic insects across the Baja California Peninsula. She has taught science in a number of formal and informal settings, including the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, San Diego Natural History Museum, Cardiff Elementary School, and San Diego State University. As an National Science Foundation science fellow, she co-taught hands-on science with classroom teachers across San Diego County and also spent several seasons in Arctic Alaska, bringing hands-on science education to unique and underserved communities on the North Slope. She is the co-author of Drawing Wild Animals and author of Animal Exploration Lab for Kids. She lives in Poway, California.