Description: Well, it looks like the lessons that I have submitted thus far are well liked. I can tell this by the hits that they accumulate. My next tutorial is going to show you "how to draw an elk step by step". Now the elk is sometimes confused with the deer and reindeer. If you look at a deer you will see that there is some strong similarities between the two. This may be because they are part of the same family or cousins. The Native Americans call the elk “wapiti” which in their tongue means “light colored deer”. Though these animals are related to deer, they are much, much larger than them. The male, which is called a bull, grow antlers that reach four feet tall increasing their height making them a whopping nine feet tall. The antlers of an elk grow above its head, which is how they obtain added height. An interesting fact about these animals I never knew is that, even though their antlers can reach up to four feet in height, they wined up loosing their large antlers every March month of the year. Yes, they loose them. But they do start growing back in May just in time for mating season during the summer months. Now elk have no hesitation about grazing in the cold winter months when the grounds are frozen and full of snow. In fact during the summer, they will move up to the mountains where it is cooler, and so that the females, and or cows, can give birth to their young. Each female elk will only give birth to one calf every year. These animals are of course herbivores and in the wild they can live to be twelve years old if they are lucky. Depending on their size, these forest grazing mammals can weight to be over one thousand pounds easy. They travel in groups called “gangs” and this means that they stick together in numbers. Now like all antler dwelling animals, when the antlers of the elk grow back they have a protective velvet that covers their horns. Now it is the elk that stripes the velvet off their antlers to prepare themselves for battles that can sometimes be deadly. These games determine which elk will walk away with the cow of their choice. It is an interesting fact how the older males dominate over small herds. These animals are amazing and it’s sad that they were once killed off in almost all of North America. Elk today can be found in places like Wyoming National Elk Refuge and in Yellowstone National Park. There are some places in the eastern parts of the United States that are trying to bring back the elk population by bringing small herds into the wilderness that is heavily wooded and sheltered to try and keep hunters from stopping the efforts of repopulating the states. Well I think that is enough information for now on the elk and or wapiti. It is time that you start this lesson on “how to draw an elk step by step”. I will be back momentarily with more drawing fun so keep your eyes peeled back to see what I bring you next. Peace out folks and have fun.