I also use a kneadable eraser that I roll into a tiny point and use the tip to erase small areas I want to highlight as white such as on the beak or the eye.
How to draw birds in 5 easy steps for beginners
People want to learn how to draw birds, but they don’t know where to start. Drawing birds can seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. With the right instructions, anyone can do it!
In this guide, we will take you through 5 easy steps to drawing a beautiful bird. We’ll start with the basics and work our way up to adding feathers and color. You’ll be able to impress your friends and family with your new skills in no time!
In short, you will need to do the following 5 easy steps which I will go into more detail, after this section.
- Draw a simple outline of the bird’s body
- Add some detail to the head, eye, beak, and wings
- Draw the feathers and other details
- Erase any mistakes and finalize your drawing
- Color in your bird with your favorite colors!
You don’t have to be the best at drawing but you have to be ready to practice to get better and never give up.
At first, your bird drawings may look horrible. That’s right, horrible.
If you are too self-critical or are expecting to pull off a hyper-realistic bird drawing in your first attempt as a beginner then I suggest you close this page and take a long hard look in the mirror. Nobody can do that no matter what any YouTube video or Instagram hack page will say.
Drawing birds or anything is all about constant practice and constantly improving by learning where you are going wrong and implementing small changes in things such as shadows or linework to slowly get better.
With that, let’s get started on the basics and if you have little experience drawing, I will give you permission to trace a bird picture to get you over your fear of starting.
For everyone else, it’s ok to mess things up here and there just start over.
Pencil tips
My first suggestion is, to use an H or 2H pencil as these are hard pencils that will draw lightly on the paper. This makes it easier to erase when you make mistakes and they are also light enough to let you later the details using darker pencils such as an HB, B, and 2B pencils.
Eastern Bluebird reference photo, used for my drawing guide.
Step 1 – Draw a simple outline of the bird’s body
I used a photo of an Eastern Bluebird as a reference for the today’s guide. You can use your own bird or find a reference for any bird you like and the steps you will take will be basically the same for any bird.
You can start with a small circle for the head and an oval for the body. Yes, this may sound like a joke but stick with me. We will be adding details to these basic shapes.
Sketch out the basic shapes that make up a bird’s body.
Add simple lines for the neck and two more for the legs. Try to make it look as much like the outline of a bird as possible.
Once you’re happy with the proportions and shape, you can erase some of the working lines so that you have the outline of the bird.
I erased some lines that were not required.
Step 2 – Add some detail to the head, eye, beak, and wings
Now that we have the basic proportions of the bird, we can start adding some detail.
Let’s start with the head. Add an eye and a beak. While most birds have different shapes or lengths of beaks, they are all a form of a triangle. So let’s draw one that roughly meets the shape of the bird we are learning to draw.
The eye is probably the most common focal point of a bird drawing so we will need to spend a bit of time making sure the eye is on point.
Look at the shape, the patterns within the eye, and the shades. I like to use a variety of pencil grades when working on the eyes so that they have a definition where the lines are clear and clean and they have depth where the lines show both dark and light.
Next, let’s add some detail to the wings. Draw a few feathers but not individual feathers. The trick to learning how to draw birds is to skip some of the details and draw what we see and not what we know. This is also a good tip for those of you who want to learn how to draw human hair or portraits.
Drawing 100 Fun & Easy Birds
This book has helped my girls learn how to draw very cute and realistic birds. They love adding these details to their already made pictures that consist of grass, trees, and the sun.
Sarah Lynn
IT IS SUPER GOOD
Rated 5.0 out of 5
February 7, 2023
It is super good.
TRENTON QUALLS
Details:
Aspiring artists, young and old, learn through simple steps to draw fun and easy birds.
In Drawing 100 Fun & Easy Birds, draw a high-stepping flamingo, a whimsically patterned owl, a graceful swan, and more!
- 57 pages
- Full color
- 8.5″ X 11″
- Perfect bound
Please note: barcodes, SKUs, and pricing listed on printed books may vary.
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How to Draw an Easy Bird
I suggest you complete a simple creative task in which you will learn how to draw an easy bird. Any beginner artist wants to learn how to draw birds and here is a very simple way how to draw a bird quickly and easily step by step.
The figure shows a small bird whose head and body represent one object. First you have to draw the outer outline and then add some small elements. I hope that you can easily do this and that drawing will give you pleasure.
To color the bird, you can use the same color as in the example, or you can get creative and color the bird differently.
- Pencil
- Paper
- Eraser
- Coloring supplies
Time needed: 20 minutes
How to Draw an Easy Bird
-
Draw the outline of the body. Depict a rounded shape in which the top is narrow, and the bottom is wide.
Sketch out the eyes. At this stage, depict two identical ovals.
Depict the beak. Just below eye level, draw the small triangular beak.
Add one wing. Draw a rounded line on the side and use a wavy line to outline the feathers.
Draw the second wing. From this angle, you only see part of the second wing, so draw one rounded line.
Sketch out the paws. At the bottom of the torso draw two small paws, each of which has two fingers.
Depict the tail. With smooth lines, draw the tail that is raised up.
Correct inaccuracies. Remove unnecessary lines.
Color the easy bird. Use beige or any other color.
I prepared a PDF file for you in advance, which contains a simplified version of the manual, so that this drawing lesson is always available to you. Download the file and use at any time.
