I loved spending time with animals when I was growing up, and a day out at the farm was always such a treat. As pigs were invariably running around, making strange noises or playing with each other they were tonnes of fun to watch, and I’ve had a soft spot for them throughout my life.
Starting off by drawing the legs and then moving onto the belly, there was plenty of fur to capture on top of the rubbery skin, which made for an interesting texture to draw! I then moved on to the face and ears to complete the drawing, making sure I captured its gorgeously shiny eyes and lovely little snout.
Facial features such as eyes and ears can look quite similar across the animal kingdom, but one thing I’ve noticed while drawing such a range of animals is that noses generally look completely different from species to species – and that’s no different with a pig’s snout. A pig’s sense of smell is around 2,000 times more sensitive than that of a human, and they use their snout to search for food and gather information during social interactions. It’s distinctness and strong, rubbery texture made it fascinating to draw.
Fun fact – ‘Sweating like a pig’ is a common yet misleading phrase as pigs can’t sweat! Pigs have no sweat glands and so in order to keep cool they roll around and sleep in the mud, hence why they often look quite dirty.