As you practice gesture drawing on live subjects (like birds), you will start to notice behavioral patterns as well. When I watch and sketch at my bird feeder, a group of House Finches often visits the feeder together—and I notice that they are so talkative, constantly chirping at one another and having tiny squabbles that seem to resolve quite quickly. When chickadees visit, I note that they don’t linger at the feeder, they grab one solitary seed and fly up to a tree to eat it in peace and safety. These are all behaviors that I record with quick sketches and little written notes to the side. Your bird feeder is a fantastic place to practice gesture drawings. Not only will it improve your skills as an artist, you will get to know your feeder birds like they are your own family.
How to draw a bird
Learn how to draw this adorable garden bird, with our in-depth, easy-to-follow tutorial. We’ve split each section into manageable steps, so you can draw along at your own speed.
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Published: November 23, 2022 at 10:00 am
Sketching birds from life requires speed, so keep your drawings quick, and, if possible, observe them when they are relatively still, such as on a bird feeder. But if you’re keen to just get started, then you’ve come to the right place!
Learn how to draw a bird with our easy step-by-step tutorial!
In this tutorial, how to draw a bird, we take you from creating the basic geometric form, to building up the shape and finally adding details and texture. You’ll develop a system to quickly get the essential form of a bird down on paper, and learn to apply this formula to sketching other garden birds. Over time, and with practice, you’ll get better and find you can develop your own style. Once you’ve got to grips with the basic form of a bird, as we show you in this tutorial, how to draw a bird, you can apply these techniques to other types of birds, too. The first step is to capture the angle of the body, and from there – construct the rest of the sketch around these initial lines. 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. If you love pencil drawing as much as we do here at Gathered, you might like to check out our pencil drawing for beginners and best drawing pencils guides for more expert tips and knowledge. We’ve also got carefully curated step-by-step drawing projects, like how to draw a cat and how to draw a dog with artist Matt Breen, and this gorgeous how to draw a tree, by art editor Sarah Orme.
Image by Saketh Upadhya
Top tips for drawing birds
- If you’re sketching from life, break down complicated scenes (for example, lots of branches or ruffled feathers) into simple shapes and patterns.
- 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.
- 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.
- Start a (secret) messy sketchbook. Don’t feel like you must show it to anyone, and in it make quick, 30-second sketches of wild birds. Concentrate on shape and form, and with practice, you’ll find that drawing birds becomes quicker and easier. You’ll also be able to flip through it and see your progress!
- The shape is the most important aspect when drawing birds. If your shape is accurate, then the bird will seem realistic, even without detail.
- Before drawing markings on your bird, lightly outline the pertinent groups of feathers. These groups will help you give structure to the body, face, tail, and wings, and help you get the proportions of the markings right.
- 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.
- 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.
- As Neil Buchanan says, when sketching from life (or photographs) draw what you see – not what you think you see!
We love seeing what you create, so don’t forget to share your art projects with us on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, too!
How to draw a bird
Follow this tutorial to draw any garden bird! If you want to draw a specific garden bird, look at pictures of birds and tweak the proportions of the early geometric shapes as necessary, then continue to follow the tutorial as you build up the detail.
For example, long-tailed tits have, no surprises here, a longer tail, so for step 3 – take the tail out twice as long at a horizontal angle. They also have smaller heads and rounder bodies, so make the ovals in steps 1 and 2 more rounded. Clever, eh!
Let’s do another one. Wrens have flatter heads, so in step 2 make the head oval, flatter and more squat to the body. Wren’s tails stick up in the air, so instead of angling the tail down towards the floor, draw your tail lines (step 3) to be sticking up, at approximately a 45-degree angle. Ready to draw a bird?
For the purposes of this bird drawing tutorial, we have used red to show clearly where the construction lines are, then lightened them when adding the detail on top.
To draw a bird you will need:
- Technical pencil
- Paper, or sketchbook
- Eraser
More From Living Bird
Birders spend countless hours in nature dedicated to the practice of observation, whether walking and spotting birds with the naked eye or stopping to carefully study a bird’s features, its beak shape, or plumage patterns through binoculars.
Coincidentally, professional artists spend a lot of time in focused observation, too. Observation in the service of producing art requires stillness and awareness; it asks us to slow down and spend time with our subjects, allowing for a deep connection.
You don’t have to be an artist to practice observation like an artist; in fact, incorporating a few time-tested sketching techniques can even change the way birders build relationships with birds and the natural world. That includes learning the skill of sketching, and that’s exactly what sketching is: a skill, not a gift or talent that you either have or don’t. As with picking up any other new skill, all it takes is time and practice.
Whether you want to connect with the birds in your backyard or document nature while you travel the world, field sketching and nature journaling are extremely powerful tools for connecting with birds. Even though creating art can be an intimidating prospect for a beginner, birders have an advantage, because they already have the critical eye of an observer. Add in a few pro tips from the art world on the process and practice of observation and sketching, and you’ll open up a whole new dimension to the way you experience and connect with birds and their habitats.
Start by Stopping at a Sit Spot
The sit spot is a tried-and-true technique in birdwatching: choose a spot where you can sit comfortably and quietly for an extended period, allowing the creatures around you to become accustomed to your presence. After about 15 to 20 minutes, animals resume their natural behaviors, and you get a glimpse of the natural world as it occurs when you’re not around.
Nature artists use sit spots as well, as a way to heighten the skills for making observations. An observation is any information you gather with your senses—sight, hearing, touch, smell, or taste. As time passes at a sit spot, the small movements and new sounds happening all around you will become more obvious. Take this time to record your observations in your nature journal, by sketching your environment and writing what you are experiencing with your senses, reflecting on what you’re experiencing in your thoughts.
As an artist in my nature journaling practice, I enjoy doing quite a lot of drawing, supplemented by note-taking about not only what I’m seeing, but also how I am feeling. For example, I often focus on one sense at a time. I take a deep breath and notice how the air smells and how the breeze moves by. I look up and see how the clouds are moving and what shade of blue the sky is as birds are silhouetted flying overhead. I close my eyes and listen closely to the birds chirping in the trees.
Use Time and Place to Overcome the Blank Paper
After settling down in your sit spot for nature journaling, it’s time to “open the page”— an artist’s phrase for getting started on a sketch. I often open the page by documenting the date, time, weather, and location at the top. This practice establishes a record of that day, so every time I revisit this page in my nature journal I am transported back to that time and place, and my observations trigger memories of what I saw and how I felt.
Logging the time and place also removes the intimidation that a blank page often causes for artists, beginners and professionals alike. For me, making the first mark is the hardest, but by recording these details on my page I can take that fear away.
