Joe Weatherly

Born in 1958 – United States

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Illustrators

The Master of Animal Art

A California-based artist with a master’s degree in illustration from California State University, Fullerton, Joe Weatherly specialized early on in animal drawing and painting, following in the footsteps of the great painters of the genre such as Bob Kuhn, Sir Alfred Munnings, Paul Jouve, and Wilhelm Kuhnert.

He divides his career between teaching—at prestigious institutions and studios such as Nickelodeon Animation, DreamWorks Feature Animation, Universal Studios, the Art Center College of Design, and the Academy of Art in San Francisco—and a prolific body of personal work, published in several seminal reference books on animal drawing, including The Weatherly Guide to Drawing Animals and Animal Essence. His reputation as an expert led DreamWorks to consult him on the animated film Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) to ensure the accuracy of the horses’ movements. His works have been featured in several solo exhibitions, notably at the Ford Motor Company headquarters, California State University Fullerton, and twice at the Daniel Maghen Gallery in Paris, in 2012 and 2016.

Joe Weatherly

I really started to enjoy teaching animal drawing because of my passion for the subject, so I created a handout each week on how to draw a specific animal. These accumulated over time, and that’s how I got the idea to write my first book, The Weatherly Guide to Drawing Animals. Ever since then, colleges and art institutions have been hiring me to teach.

I really began to enjoy teaching animal drawing because it’s a subject I’m passionate about. So I created a weekly handout explaining how to draw a specific animal; over time, these handouts accumulated, and that’s how I came up with the idea to write my first book, “The Weatherly Guide to Drawing Animals.” Since then, colleges and art institutions have been hiring me to teach.