Look below the surface
Underneath the feathers, a bird looks like a plucked chicken. The wing feathers attach to the hand and forearm; note that the knee is actually hidden up under its feathers, and the joint you sometimes see below the body is actually its ankle!
Start with the basic Shape
Getting the basic shape correct from the beginning is the most crucial aspect of the drawing. To capture the posture, proportions, and angles of your subject, lightly sketch lines at the beginning of your picture rather than concentrating on details. To begin drawing a bird, draw a single line representing the bird’s posture or sitting angle. Draw an oval for the body and a circle for the head over this. Then stop and check your proportions. Early in the drawing, it’s simple to adjust the head’s size. You can see that I originally drew the head in the animated drawings below too large. After checking the proportions, I drew the head circle smaller again to prevent the birds’ heads from having chickadee proportions. Point out the locations of the legs, leading edge of the wing, eye-beak, and tail. When you find angles around the head and tail coverts, carve them in. The angles surrounding the head and tail aid in breaking the pattern created by the two circles you initially used to construct the bird. In the absence of this, it’s simple for your drawings to look like snowmen. Many artists skip these crucial first steps, but investing time in the beginning will pay off in the long run. After you’ve captured the silhouette’s stance, dimensions, and angles, you can go over these initial lines with a heavier pencil to add details before adding color.
Learn to see feather groups
Studying bird anatomy will help you draw birds more accurately. On certain parts of the bird’s body, bare skin lies between the growing feathers. These feather groups give a bird its form and contours, and the patterns on the feathers are directly related to the feather group underneath them. This animation alternates between a diagram that highlights the feather groups and a drawing of a Song Sparrow that shows its shape without any feather patterns.
FAQ
How do you draw a bird sketch?