What fun, I thought and took my paper home to plan a drawing for the next day. On April 8th when I arrived at work, several staff had created bird drawings. There were all types from simple line drawings to colorful sketches. Owls, doves, robins, swans, and hummingbirds found their way onto the wall of our staff room.
The next evening, as I was standing there looking at the pictures, I became curious about the source of Draw a Bird Day. So, I did some research and discovered the Draw a Bird Day website. I read with interest about Dorie and her uncle. And then came the third paragraph.
How To Draw Bird
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3 years later, Dorie was killed after being struck by a car. At her funeral, her coffin was filled with bird images that had been made by soldiers, nurses and doctors from the ward where her uncle had been. Ever since then, those men and women remembered the little girl who brought hope to the ward by drawing birds on her birthday, April 8th.
Draw a Bird Day was never declared an official holiday, but it grew through those soldiers and medical personnel and their families. Today, it is celebrated world wide as a way to express joy in the very simplest of things in life.
I went back into the staff room and looked at the bird drawings again. I had enjoyed making my drawing and viewing the drawings of my coworkers. It had lifted my spirits to make that picture and to see the creativity of the people I worked with. It had, in fact, the same effect that it had in that hospital ward all those years ago.
Seventy-two years after a little girl asked her uncle to draw her a bird, people all over the world are still drawing birds on her birthday. Still celebrating hope and happiness. Still celebrating joy in the simple. Still sharing the fun.
You can suggest the wing in many ways. Choose a level of detail that is right to the level of detail you really see. On a distant bird you might show less. On a close cooperative bird (and a more detailed drawing overall) you might show more. Here are some examples of how you might simplify a wing. These are not a step-by-step tutorial leading to a detailed drawing but different possibilities of how you might simplify a wing. Click the first image to enlarge and start the slide show.
So here is your homework. Learn the wing and primary feather groups. Practice drawing them feather by feather as an exercise. Then give up what you know and simplify your understanding to key lines. Be playful with it. What is the most you can show with the least amount of fuss.
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.
I use high-resolution photographs to help me study bird plumage. The photographers who run the following websites have given me and my students (including you) their permission to use their photographs as drawing reference. If you publish a drawing that is significantly based on one of these photographs, please acknowledge the photographer in the credits. I thank these photographers for there wonderful bird photography and their generosity supporting us and our work.
Here is my step by step process to block in the shape of the bird. These steps are handled as lightly as possible (either with minimal pressure with a graphite pencil or a col-erase Non-photo blue pencil (see equipment list). Teachers may use this page to help their class learn to draw birds. Download high resolution version for printing here: How to draw birds
The most important part of the drawing is getting the basic shape right at the start. Instead of focusing on details at the start of a picture, make light sketch lines to capture the posture, proportions, and angles of your subject. Start your bird sketch by noting the posture of the bird or the angle at which it sits with a single line. Over this, add an oval for a body and then a circle for the head. Then stop and check your proportions. It is easy to change the size of the head early in the drawing. In the animated drawings below, you will notice that I initially drew the head too large. I redrew the head circle smaller after my proportion check so that the birds will not have a head with the proportions of a chickadee. Indicate the locations of eye-beak, tail, leading edge of wing, and legs. Carve in angles where you find them around the head and tail coverts. These angles around the head and tail help break the imprint of the two circles that you used to initially build the bird. Without this, it is easy for your drawings to resemble a snowman. Many artists speed past these important initial steps but time spent at the start will pay off in the end. One you capture the posture, proportions and angles of the silhouette, you can add details in heavier pencil over these initial lines, finishing with color.
I am in 6th grade, I love nature, I live in Arizona, and I am almost 12. I would like to know how to make my drawings more realistic. No matter how hard I try to make my structure more realistic they always look like stick figures. can you help me?
Wow, what an incredible resource for bird lovers like myself! I have always been fascinated by the beauty of birds, and this website has truly enhanced my understanding and appreciation for them. The step-by-step drawing tutorials are amazing and have helped me capture the essence of these magnificent creatures on paper. Thank you for providing such invaluable guidance and inspiration. Keep up the fantastic work! Martin Williamson
Hi, I recently bought your book on how to draw birds and I love it! I have been drawing all my life and animals are my favorite subject. Your book and videos are so detailed and helpful! I am now drawing birds much more accurately.
Hey Jack! Been a while. So cool to stumble upon your website while looking for a field guide to the PNW and will be joining in, with my kids, on one of your upcoming zoom drawing classes. Your work is as beautiful as I remember it! Hope you and your family are doing well and look forward to seeing your work online in the coming weeks.
I had so much fun last week, I got 7 additional people to sign up! What more could anyone want as a tool to help them through quarantine? Learning to translate what you see in the field to the page in front of you forces you to look at the world with renewed curiosity and discernment. When the daily news is enough to make even the most intrepid soul want to curl up and shut down, honing skills that help you record and joyfully connect to the living, wild, natural world is more important than ever.
Thank you!
You will see amazing changes if you start drawing on a regular basis. You can learn to do this. It is not a gift. It is a skill that we develop from practice. Try it. Send me your sketches and I can help coach you.
99% of the book is unchanged. I am developing other new material that I will also publish some day. perhaps as a second bird drawing book, perhaps as a second edition. For now the big changes are on those first step by step pages where I am working on blocking in the bird shapes.
Thank you for this wonderful and scientific tutorial. Thank you for your time. Do you have a book or tutorial on the basics of color pencil drawing? It could be much help for me if you have one. Thanks in advance.
just found your site and just began drawing later in my life-live in very rural area and difficult to find art instructor -it was very exciting for me to find your wonderful drawing instructions-thank you!
Hi Adina,
I will try to make a video about tree bark and leaves, great idea. I would suggest my book: Drawing Birds. it has lots of ideas about drawing birds that are on the move and static poses (photos etc). Also see this video: -and-drawing/movingbirds
In my drawing class we are learning to draw Sulfur Crested Cuckatoos ( local birds) your tutorial has really helped. Thank Goodness my Search engine showed me this site. It has really helped. Thanks again
Thank you Tracy, Your work is amazing I have been enjoying exploring the illustrations on your site. Thank you for your support! I and delighted that you like the book so much. Would you be willing to write a review? I am now working on a new book on nature sketching and journaling. I have having a great time with it. What are your new projects.
Katrina, I have been exploring your website and I am really excited about your new book. I wish I had it for reference when I was working on mine. I encourage my readers to check it out and learn from those drawings. Artistic, creative, playful, accurate and alive. It really helps to be able to see into the subject. You must be able to understand the surface that is below what you are drawing. If you want to draw the feathers, you must understand the skin contours and feather tracts. If you want to visualize the skin, you must understand the skeleton. If you want to pose the skeleton, you must feel the energy, intention and soul of the bird.
Diane, Look for the new book in September. I am very excited about it. Reviewers have said that it has really helped them draw. If you are having trouble downloading the PDF, try clicking it and dragging it onto your desktop. It should download automatically as a PDF which you can open with a PDF reader. Let me know if that does not work.
Your drawings are lovely, and depict the life and attitude of the bird. I also paint birds for a living for field guides. I had the privilege of visiting with Don Eckelberry, one of my favorite bird artists. He is no longer living, but it is worth looking up his work if any of your email participants want to look at some of the best bird art that was produced in the past. 152ee80cbc
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