How to Draw Birds

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By using patterns of pencil strokes to fill in the feathers, as we’ve done here, you can cover a large area in a short time. Webcams streaming from inaccessible places such as eagle nests and remote puffin colonies are entertaining resources. Here are two of my favorites: The National Audubon Society Puffincam and Canopy Family Panama Fruit Feeder cam. Happy bird drawing! Further Reading Be sure to also study and draw live birds whenever you can. While photographs are helpful for learning technical details, the only way to really get to know birds is to watch them in life. Learn by Doing

Motion studies from recorded or live-streamed birds are great for those times when you can’t be out in nature. And, of course, you can hit “pause” whenever you like. I sometimes connect my iPhone to a fieldscope in a technique called digiscoping, allowing me to get multiple poses from a single video and watch a bird move naturally. I took slow-motion video of yellow-tailed orioles sparring in a Panama marsh, making sketches from which to paint Yellow-Tailed Orioles (oil on canvas, 20×16) in the studio. If you’re someone who just wants to make a beautiful bird watercolor painting, then you’ll probably end up in the first category soon – because the more you watch birds, the more you will get drawn into their daily activities, and observe details and just enjoy their bird-ness. Having a good understanding of birds will in turn help you to make better drawings of them. Studying bird anatomy will help you draw birds more accurately. Feathers grow from specific regions on the bird’s body with bare skin between them. These feather groups define the shape and contours of a bird and the patterns on the feathers relate directly to the underlying feather group. This animation shifts between a drawing of a Song Sparrow,its shape without feather patterns, and a diagram emphasizing the feather groups.Birds, in general, are built using circles. But it’s easy to make your bird too round, so look for the angles where the different parts of the bird meet: head meets body, body meets tail etc. Once you’ve got to grips with this, then your bird will start taking shape.

You don’t need to draw every line or feather on the bird, sometimes just a suggestion will be enough to capture the essence of a bird.As for the right drawing techniques, you go from basic shapes to more detail. A basic understanding of drawing is helpful. Drawing birds is a wonderful way to make yourself look more carefully at nature. Here are some resources that I hope will help you draw birds and understand them more deeply. If you understand bird anatomy you will be better at drawing what you see. I have many blog posts giving step-by-step demonstrations and details about drawing birds (see list at right). See the links at the right of your screen. You can find more information in The Laws Guide to Drawing Birds. The most important thing you can do to improve your bird drawing and sketching is to start drawing more frequently. Keep your sketching materials handy. Please leave comments and questions and I will expand these resources based on your input. Using Photographs to help you Understand Birds Above all: the birds come first. Do not disturb birds when you’re drawing, don’t approach them too closely, and avoid causing them stress or disturbing them in their daily activities. If you sit still for a little while, you will notice that some bird species are really inquisitive and will come close to investigate, others will simply accept you as part of the landscape and sit next to you and go about their daily business. Learning how to draw birds from life is as much a sport as it is an art. Birds rarely hold still, so catching them on paper requires a combination of observation, good reflexes and a fast pencil. You can work from photos, but one of the rewards of drawing birds from life is that you’ll get to know them well. I offer a free a step by step guide (similar to this one) on bird drawing for everyone who follows my newsletter ( sign up here).

A sketchbook, binoculars and pencil are my primary pieces of equipment. I use a mechanical pencil — no sharpening required, which would just slow me down. Binoculars are great if you have them, but if you don’t, start with birds that can be approached closely. Although they go unnoticed much of the time, we live our lives surrounded by birds. There might be pigeons on telephone wires, house sparrows in the hedges or geese on the golf links. Birds are possibly the most visible of the world’s wildlife. They’re easy to see and study and, with practice, not too difficult to draw. If you’re sketching from life, break down complicated scenes (for example, lots of branches or ruffled feathers) into simple shapes and patterns.

If you want to dive in really deep and learn all the basics for sketching birds, anatomy, and painting techniques, then my class How to draw birds is the right thing for you. A note about sketching birds in the field The short answer to this is: because it’s a lot of fun. If you’re already a birdwatcher, I don’t need to convince you of anything, because you’re probably already enjoying birds simply for what they are. Sketching birds can add enjoyment and increased knowledge to this wonderful pastime – sketching requires you to observe closely, and sketching will help you keep an active memory of what you saw in the field. Birds are complex, and drawing is about simplifying. Begin your drawing with large shapes to establish proportions and posture—an oval for the body, a circle for the head, a line to show the angle of the bill and eye. Imagine the point on which the body would balance, and put a vertical line for the feet right there. Draw these lines lightly and use them as a guide. Then use stronger lines as you build up the shape. Practice seeing simple shapes on a live bird, and experiment with putting them on paper. Soon you'll be able to see the bird in your sketch even when all you've drawn is a few generic shapes. Smooth the Feathers The shape is the most important aspect when drawing birds. If your shape is accurate, then the bird will seem realistic, even without detail. When sketching the body of the bird, add a centre line in the middle of the breast. This will help you maintain symmetry as you’re drawing the breast feathers.

If you’re an artist, birds can be one of the most rewarding and fascinating subjects there is. Sketching birds will bring you constant new discoveries, and it’s a great way to spend time with nature, science and art at the same time. Birds are also a great subject to practice wildlife drawing, since they’re fairly easy subjects, yet so diverse and challenging that you’ll be busy for a long time. How do you get started with sketching birds?To deepen what you’ve just learned, I have a number of free bird drawing tutorials on my Youtube channel in which I show how I draw and paint birds, feel free to take a look. Here’s the playlist. In this last step, you can refine your drawing. Only proceed to this step once you’ve gotten all the basics, especially the proportions right. By refining, I mean adding smaller details like feathers, more definition around the eyes, or adding angles around the contour. Now my drawing looks like this: When drawing the tail – the feathers overlap so that the middle feather is on top, then fan the feathers on either side. So, use this formula when drawing the birds tail.