Loosen up Your Style With Oil Pastels

Loosen up Your Style With Oil Pastels

This post may contain affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you that allows me to continue to provide useful content. Thanks.

Oil pastels are an exciting and versatile art medium. Their convenient versatility can be the aspect of oil pastels that make them confusing to beginners. There are more than a few ways to use oil pastels. Which way is the right way?

The first confusing bit is that oil pastels are technically a painting medium that use the same motor-skills as drawing. They’re usually stumpy and blunt, so even though you have the same hand control that you would a pencil, adding details and precision is difficult.

So are they for painting or drawing? I have seen many a student become very frustrated while using oil pastels for the first time. There is an inner conflict brought about by the assumption that they should be able to create precise details, but the materials won’t behave like their pencil. It can easily create the sensation that one isn’t “good” at using oil pastels and there is a temptation to revert back to the materials we know well that make us feel in control. (Okay, maybe I’m mostly talking about me.)

Any time you get the sensation that you aren’t “good” in something in art, chances are that somewhere in your head there is a “should” or “should not” bouncing around and dictating to you what your art is supposed to be in order to be “right”.

The good news is, one of the greatest freedoms in art is that we are not bound to use the mediums in the same way others use them, or for that matter, how they’re intended to be used.

If you can get comfortable with that, then you can have endless success in oil pastel. This post is about making the most of the oil pastel’s ability to be loose, expressive and imperfect. I will introduce you to the benefits of oil pastel in its loose form. At the end of the post you can find the link to an oil pastel tutorial in the style of my children’s book illustrations.

Y is for Yellow-bellied Warbler work in progress

C is for Chickadee work in progress

K is for Kingfisher work in progress

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Fast and Loose

When I decided to create a children’s alphabet book about birds while at home with a new(ish) baby, I needed a medium and style that allowed for success even when illustrating with a wiggly infant on my lap. I also needed one that didn’t take hours and hours for every illustration. While researching and planning, I revisited some oil pastel animals I had done on black paper and knew I had found exactly what I was looking for.

That is how I came to illustrate Little Birder’s 26 birds in loose, bright oil pastel on black paper.  

• Relatively fast

• Loose application

• Bold illustrations

• Lends itself to imperfection

I love how thick and bright the pastels cover the black paper, and I think the black paper outlines between shapes makes the colors pop and the illustrations stand out. (I mean look at this camel. What’s not to love?)

Oil Pastel Camel by Jessalyn Claire

Oil Pastel Elephant by Jessalyn Claire

Oil Pastel Horse by Jessalyn Claire

• Relatively fast

Loosening up your style and attempting something similar to the examples I have shown of my developed style on black paper will also shorten the amount of time it takes to complete your artwork. The side bonus of moving toward something with more forgiveness is that it will speed up the process as you leave small imperfections and choose not to fuss over every small detail. 

Troubleshooting tip: Finding yourself having a hard time not getting caught up and spending more time than you mean to in the details? Choose the area in your artwork where you want your viewer to spend the most time. Allow yourself the most time adding slow and detailed application into this area. Limit the amount of details you attempt to add into the rest of the work. 

• Loose application

As mentioned, Oil pastels have a variety of options for application, allowing for freedom and choice in your work. Oil pastels is one of the art mediums that can create very successful and exciting work when applied loosely. 

Troubleshooting tip: Practice a loose style by picking a simple (but interesting) subject and create three versions. You can either start from precise and loosen up, or you can start with a really loose and free application, tightening up your work as you move to the second and then third versions.

• Bold illustrations

Despite the fact that oil pastels vary in the thickness and opacity in their application, they all lend themselves to bright, bold results. There is flexibility to blend them in layers or apply them thickly in an impasto style, or both. 

Troubleshooting tip: Do your pastels look a bit like crayon markings on the paper? I have seen students disillusioned with oil pastels only to realize that they have stopped their art too early in the process and have not built up their oil pastels enough, either with blending or with thick heavy application to make the colors pop.

If your artwork is feeling like a kids crayon drawing (and you don’t like it that way) ADD MORE. Yes, there is a point where you won’t be able to add any more without some negative effects, but if you’re having the mentioned problem, then you probably lean toward being naturally light-handed with your oil pastels. Don’t be afraid. I know it is intimidating to do something that might “mess up” the work you’ve spent time on, but so often if something doesn’t look right or “good” it is because it just isn’t finished yet. 

In order to get the boldness out of the oil pastels you will want to make sure you have done one of three things: 

1. Make sure you’ve added enough pastel that you can blend with your finger (or a solvent like baby oil) to cover the tooth of the paper. This will also take away the “crayon” effect. This would be the thinnest application of oil pastel and would likely have the most subtle effect.

2. Blend the oil pastel with other oil pastels until it is a soft blended surface. Layering the oil pastels will blend them into one another. There has to be enough oil pastel on the surface to be able to achieve this effect. Remember that if you are still seeing the white tooth of the paper underneath your markings (and you don’t like it) you’re not doing it wrong, you simply haven’t quite added enough layers.

3. Similar to the style I’ve developed on black paper, rather than slowly adding and building up oil pastel to make it thick and opaque, I simply press harder in the initial application, sometimes without layering the color. (I usually do a combination of this and the layering.) So, if you are adding marks to your artwork like this and it looks like crayon (and you don’t like it) - press harder. 

• Lends itself to imperfection

I find that, contrary to what you might expect, beginner artists actually lean toward being too clean and precise, and adding too much detail in their subjects. I am convinced that this is because without our own creative experience, when we view great works that are very convincing in their subject matter, we assume it is because they’ve spent more time and put more of every detail into it for us to read. In actuality, great artists are usually able to create convincing art with fewer marks and details because of how well they have come to understand things like light and shadow, form, color theory, and so on. For new artists, the tighter we are and the more detail we try to get in, without fully understanding how to do it convincingly, the less impressive and convincing our art will be. 

That is why oil pastel is a great exercise in moving us away from rigidity and control, and toward loose, expressive and “imperfection” that will actually create interest and excitement in our work. 

Troubleshooting Tip: To help you learn how to represent important details, try an exercise of choosing a subject matter with some degree of detail, and see how few strokes or how few shapes you can use to create a convincing representation of the subject. Try squinting your eyes while looking at your reference and only including the details you can see while squinting. Similarly you could choose a subject matter such as an apple, and attempt to paint it in the style of an impressionist artist, such as Monet.

If you’re not convinced yet, here is the thing, oil pastels are stumpy and blunt and do not lend themselves to precision details, so you’re off the hook. You can let go of perfection and set your expectations for discovery. There is a reason that I picked this style for that season of life.

If I can manage this style with a baby on my lap (who constantly tried to snack on the art materials,) then you can manage it. The key to success is to let go of perfection and enjoy the imperfection that comes with those stumpy little oil pastels. 

Have you tried oil pastels yet? Comment below and let me know your experience with my favorite little artist crayons.

Follow this link to find the tutorial for an oil pastel painting in the style of my children’s book Little Birder: A Field Guide to Birds of the Alphabet. 

Click the image below to get your own copy of my children’s book Little Birder: A Field Guide to Birds of the Alphabet.

How to: Expressive Oil Pastel Illustrations (in the Style of the Children's Book Little Birder)

How To: Expressive Oil Pastel Illustrations

(in the Style of my Children’s Book)

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This post may contain affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you that allows me to continue to provide useful content. Thanks.

Do you want to use oil pastels but don’t know where to start? In this tutorial I will walk you through the steps to illustrate an oil pastel bird (or any subject matter) in the style of my children’s book “Little Birder: A Field Guide to Birds of the Alphabet”. This stye is bright and impactful and makes the most of oil pastel’s appealing qualities, but it does not require perfection or years of mastery and can be painted in a relatively short time.

This is a great place to start your oil pastel journey or continue to develop your own style using the versatile medium of oil pastels.

Supplies

• Oil Pastels ( I enjoy this Pentel set or this Sakura set)

• Black paper

• Pencil & eraser

Optional:

• Washi, Masking, or painter's tape

• Drawing board or cardboard backing

• Hand warmers- for those of you who are painting your bird outside in freezing weather like me (I can’t recommend it.)

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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Getting Started

To get started, I always tape the edges of my paper. This is optional, as you could also just illustrate all the way to the edge of your paper. It’s really a preference thing. 

If you do tape, remember to lessen the stickiness of your painter’s tape, masking tape, or washi tape by sticking it to your pants a few times. This will help prevent the tape from tearing your paper when you remove it. *The longer your tape stays on, the more likely it is to damage your paper when it comes off. If you stop your work and come back, say… a month later, the tape will make some protests when you try to remove it.

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Sketch your composition

The next step will be to sketch your composition. I have provided a step by step illustration that you can use to practice your oil pastel artwork here, or you can create your own drawing.

Don’t worry about being cautious the pencil for your sketch, unlike other mediums the oil pastel will cover it and it does not stand out on the black paper.

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Starting With Oil Pastels

For this tutorial I’ve chosen the Common Kingfisher because as mentioned, blues go down very opaque and bright on the black paper, requiring less experimenting to get the colors to show. However, it also has an area of orange, which is one of the colors that can require putting white down first before adding the color to create the opacity and vibrancy. This will allow us opportunity to discuss and practice both in our painting. 

To begin the illustration, I begin with the main subject matter first. This is where I put most of my time into fine details. I focus my detail work on important areas like the face, eyes, etc. Use this to draw the viewers eye to the place in the work you want them to see most. 

Notes about oil pastels on black paper:

• Some colors go on more transparent and some more opaque.

• The most opaque colors are white, blues, greens, pinks, some reds and purples, the light or pastel versions of all of the colors.

• The most transparent colors are yellow & orange, some reds and purples, the darkest versions of all of the colors. 

• If you use white underneath one of the transparent colors it will show up more vibrantly as if it is opaque (but slightly more pastel in color).

• Use the black paper to your advantage by let the black paper show through in places for the darkest areas and to create contrast.

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Step by Step

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STEP 1

1. Starting with a light blue pastel. Block a thin layer into the areas of blue feathers on your kingfisher. You only need to start with a thin layer. The key to oil pastel is building up in layers, but adding more is easier than removing color from your work. So there is no rush to get thick pigment onto the paper. The point is to block in the light and dark shapes of color so you begin to see the shape form. There is no need to get overly detailed yet, but don’t be overly generic with laying down color either. Try to add your color in the direction of the feathers and pay attention to the shapes of the highlights.

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STEP 2

2. Select a color that closely resembles the darker blue hues in the bird and begin the same process, adding marks in the direction of the feathers. Apply it thicker in areas that will become even darker as you progress. Tip: The light blue applies the same principles as the white. Because of its lightness and opacity you can apply it beneath the darker blue to intensify the colors. It is not necessary with the blue hues, and I like to mark in the various shades of blue as they are to give myself the ability to begin to see the shape and structure appear. Keeping this in mind though, it is okay to apply the light blue liberally underneath, as it will blend with the darker hues that are applied on top. 

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STEP 3

3. Next, referring to the chart above, decide how you will apply the yellows and orange hues, still following the same process as the light and darker blues where lighter colors are applied first and attention is paid to the broad shapes of color. Begin with the lightest yellow or white. I use a pastel yellow because it behaves similar to a white underneath the following layers, but it still adds the warmth and hue of the yellow. If you do not have this pastel, I recommend a very thin layer of white underneath. Mark first the light highlight areas and then follow with the orange hues. 

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STEP 4

4. Unlike in other mediums, white oil pastels can be applied over other colors that are darker, though it will not always completely cover the color beneath it. This ability is because of its thickness and opacity. This means, that unless you are applying white down before applying a transparent color, you do not have to start with the white areas first, but we will begin working from lighter versions of color, and move darker. Since this Kingfisher has bright white areas, treat them as you have the other shapes of color. They are solid white so you do not have to layer lightly. Simply press harder and take a single pass. Also add in some specks of white for the reflection in the eye and lighten the top of the bill. With both of these areas you can use the black pastel at the end of your artwork to correct any mistakes so just attempt these details with any tip or edge you can find on your white pastel. 

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STEP 5

5. Next I go over the areas where I have already laid down a layer of color. For the orange chest area, I looked closely at the areas of light and dark within the orange and applied another layer of one, or both of the oil pastels I used previously. Before applying another layer of orange, to brighten the dark areas of orange pastel I very lightly applied a stroke or two of the pastel yellow. In this case it does not color the area, but it adds enough oil and pigment to give the orange pastel something to blend with and creates less transparency. The opaque color will also make the orange more vibrant. If you look closely within each color you will see lots of variation of shades. Squint your eyes and try to focus on the large areas of light and dark that you see left.

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STEP 6

6. From here you can continue to go back and forth, layering the pigments up.  Add light blue back on top in areas to create the suggestion of the patterns in the feathers. You will know you are getting close to where you want it to be when you start seeing areas of the painting blending and appearing more like paint than crayon. However, it is okay to see some black paper coming through in some areas. Select the areas where you want the pastel layers to be dense, but don’t worry about getting rid of the paper completely. Always build up slowly and thoughtfully. Remember, you can add more easily than you can remove what you’ve already applied. 

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STEP 7

7. Select a color for the branch. I selected a medium gray and then applied the olive green that will be the background color to the underside. This gives the sense of a reflected light. You do not have to be as careful or slow in building up the color on the branch. You can now blend a small amount of black into some lower areas to create shadow and white on the top edge, or you can wait to do it closer to the end. 

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STEP 8

8.At this point I begin the background. First I trace around the image leaving a black border between the background and the subject matter. This is my stylistic preference and is optional. Apply the background very loosely, leaving some of the black paper coming through. In order to do this well, you will apply the oil pastel with firmer pressure so that each stroke solidly covers the paper. This prevents the need to make multiple passes. 

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STEP 9

9. The last step is to touch up with the black pastel. First I apply it into the eye and on the beak. If you accidentally cover the white spots, don’t fret. You can simply come back and press your white pastel onto the spot again and leave another white dot on top. I blend a small amount of black into the darkest shadow areas in the blue feathers to create more contrast. I do not always add black to the black borders around the subject, but I do when I need to clean something up and create a sharper edge. 

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STEP 10

10. Remove the tape. Tip: To prevent damage to your paper, pull the tape very slowly and angled out rather than straight down. Don’t forget to sign your work!

That’s it! Did you find yourself enjoying the freedom of imperfection? If you have questions or comments be sure to leave them below.

How to Draw Realistic Birds- Part Two- Final Drawing

How to Draw Realistic Birds

Welcome back! Don’t forget to sign up to download the How to Draw Realistic Birds- Part Two PDF below.

(Did you miss How to Draw Realistic Birds Part-One? Find it here.)

This post may contain affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. Thanks.

Part Two- Final Drawing

Welcome to the second part of the How to Draw Realistic Birds tutorial. In part one, we learned how to see and use basic shapes to create a sketch that will be the foundation of our drawing. In this post, we will move on to the “artistic” part of our drawing, and let’s be honest— the part we all came for.

Let’s pick up where we left off…

When I talk about the two different stages of a drawing, I will often refer to the sketch stage as the “thinking part” and the drawing stage as, “the artistic part”, because that is essentially what they are. The sketch is the stage of a drawing that forces you to slow down, use your brain as you measure and study and adjust until your drawing is as accurate as possible.

The second stage is the stage of adding shading and details that make it come to life. Before we fully move on, have you adjusted your outline and erased the leftover shapes from our very first few marks? Don’t move on to your shading and details until you’ve checked the shape around the head and neck, checked to see if any of your proportions need adjusting… make any changes that you notice need to be made at this stage. They are harder to adjust later on.

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Shading & Details

Shading Practice

I like to make a few notes about the techniques of shading before we get into the process.

1. Shading with the tip of your pencil: I’m sure this is obvious, but one method of shading uses the pencil in the same position as when you write, where the tip of the pencil is touching the paper. It may be obvious, but that doesn’t make it easy. Smooth, controlled shading in this way is a skill that has to be developed and practiced. Use this method on a drawing that you plan to spend a lot of time completing (because it is slow), small areas of shading like the eye, and for texture marks.

2. Shading with the side of your pencil: Another option would be to grip your pencil slightly farther back toward the eraser and apply the graphite with the side of the pencil. Doing so applies the pencil in a softer and faster way. You are still able to create variations of dark and light by pressing harder or going over areas without as much time or delicacy. This is great for drawings which you do not intend to spend a long time completing.

3. Lastly, and this is somewhat contested among artists, but you can smooth and blend your shading by smudging. I do recommend practicing controlled shading, but it is your drawing. No one cares if you use your finger and soften up those shades. Blend areas of shading by rubbing in circular motions with your finger or tissue. You can even create a smooth gradient by smudging pencil into areas of the drawing that do not have any shading. Use this as a first layer to come back on top with texture or further shading.

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Step one: creating contrast

Darkest and lightest areas

There are multiple ways you could go about the next few steps. For the sake of learning, there must be an order, but in your own practice it is more likely that you will find yourself switching between shading and details as it feels right. There is an intuition that you will develop for the process.

Because I believe in some instant gratification as motivation, I recommend starting the shading by finding the very darkest areas of the drawing as well as the lightest. The paper is most likely white and you cannot get whiter than the white of the paper, so in that case we simply leave out the areas of highlight. So those are already taken care of and all you need to do is find the darkest areas.

Squint your eyes at the reference photo. Doing so will take away detail and reveal to you larger shapes of various shades of color. Notice any areas that are so dark when you squint that you can more or less fill them in as dark as possible with your pencil. Some of these areas will not have sharp borders, but they will fade into lighter areas so you will also want to replicate this by fading those darkest areas. Some areas thought may have edges, like the eye.

2. The eye is my favorite place to start because it is quick and very gratifying. To shade in the eye, fill the eye in as dark as possible, but leave out a small organic shape, like a circle, the white of the paper. Even when I don’t see this reflection in the reference photo, I will still add it to the eye. This is because it taps into the way our brain processes shape. As artists, we are putting flat lines and shades onto a paper and attempting to make them look 3-dimensional. This one simple trick will instantly make the drawing look more realistic because the viewer’s brain will recognize it as the highlight that happens on a sphere with a light source. (Step 1. is the last step from the basic sketch.)

3. From here, shade the areas that you have deemed to be the darkest. Because they are areas to shade as densely as you can, you do not have to be quite as deliberate and slow as in areas that require more variation and attention to detail. Immediately, you will see a high contrast in the drawing. By doing this, the form will take shape and it also identifies a value range. By determining the outer limits of our values, it makes it easier to then see the middle values that fall between white and black, or those middle values that will require more deliberate shading (effort).

Step two: suggesting texture

Drawing Feathers

The shading is not complete, but before moving on, let’s take a look at suggesting texture, in this case- feathers.

Often, new artists or young artists will fall into the trap of drawing what they know is there whether they see it or not. A bird is covered in feathers, and most likely, you already know that. So your very intelligent machinery (brain) kicks in and says, “Great. Let’s cover this thing in feathers.” The result will look something like the photo below, and not very realistic. However, by zooming in very closely and tracing what we actually see… you can see clearly that even though there are feathers covering the bird, we do not actually see feathers. What we see are the SHADOWS of the upper layer of feathers being cast on the feathers below. And they often look like hash lines, v or w shapes, squiggles, dots— anything but feathers— but this IS what we see, so this is what you need to draw.

This is called “suggesting” feathers. That is because you are suggesting that they are there without drawing the feather shape. Similarly, you do not need to cover the entire drawing in these lines. You only need to add them to the key areas to suggest the texture. If you struggle to know where to add and where to leave them off, squint again to remove the detail and only add them in some of the areas where you still see the suggestion of them in the reference. You might often see these at the line where the head and body meet, the chest and belly area, and along fluffy edges of the outline.

Step three: Middle values and detail

You are now aware of the skills required to complete your drawing. It is time to go back and forth between these methods and practice your intuition. Look closely at the value in different areas on the body, filling in a smooth value of grey or dark grey in any area of shadow. Use your feather shadow marks to show texture or even to darken areas of shadow. Use light lines for texture in highlight areas and use heavy, dark lines for texture in areas of dark feathers or shadow.

Conclusion

An inspiring artist and naturalist, John Muir Laws, said, “Every drawing is practice for the next.” What he means by this is, if our primary focus each time is on the outcome of our drawing and whether we end with a pretty picture, then sometimes we will succeed but we will likely fail in equal proportion. In the journey toward becoming the artist you would like to be, there will be drawings that you do not enjoy when you are finished. Holding pretty outcomes as your highest aim makes you vulnerable to discouragement, and even vulnerable to giving up. However, if when you sit down to draw you are approaching it as if it is always practice for the next drawing that you do, then regardless of the final product you will have a successful drawing. Each time you intentionally put time and effort into your skill you WILL learn and gain something. You are literally creating new connections in your brain each time you exercise the effort of your skill.

So, more important than all, aim for discovery and get comfortable with the idea of imperfection. That will be your fastest road to art success.

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Love all things birds and art?

Click the image below to grab a copy of my children’s book, Little Birder: A Field Guide to Birds of the Alphabet.

Click here to read How to Draw Realistic Birds Part-One

How to Draw Realistic Birds- Part One- Starting with a Sketch

How to Draw Realistic Birds- Part One

This post may contain affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. Thanks.

Drawing skills are the foundation of any art practice. Knowing how to draw opens a world of possibilities on which to build your creativity. That is because the basis of great drawing skills is observation. In order to draw well (realistically), we have to draw accurately. Drawing accurately means obeying the rules of nature, tapping into the way the brain works, and knowing where it sometimes steers us wrong.

First of all, what do we mean by realistic?

How to Draw Realistic Birds- Part One- Sketch

Have you ever seen a drawing or a painting that looks so real that you can’t tell whether it is a photo or an artwork? That is probably what is conjured for many people when they envision realistic art. And it’s true, that is realistic. In fact, it is so much so that it is called photo-realistic, or hyper-realism. But that isn’t the only type of realistic artwork. For this lesson it is important to realize that when the word realistic is used, what I mean is “accurate”.

Are the proportions accurate? Is the head the correct size for the body? Is the tail the correct length, the wing the right length? Does it have the identifying marks of the bird that we are using as a reference. Have I created a sense of form (3D) by adding shadows and highlights strategically? Basically, does this look like the thing I am trying to draw?

(Psst… you can download the FREE How to Draw Realistic Birds- Part One PDF below!)

Step one: Basic Map Sketch

The drawing will be done in two parts, starting with a sketch. While teaching children this process, in order to illustrate the important purpose of a sketch in realistic drawing, I began to call this step a “basic-map-sketch”. I call it “basic” because it begins by using basic shapes that you already recognize and understand very well to build the overall structure of your drawing. I call it a “map-sketch” because it does for us as artists, what a map does for a traveler. If I’m going somewhere I’ve never been, I don’t simply take off and start guessing which direction to go. I get out a map, look at all of the lines and angles, and get a sense of the picture as a whole to understand where I am going and then I start. To start off with guesses would take longer, involve more mistakes and it’s likely to require turning around and going back a few times.

Think about your sketch as a safe place to make mistakes. The sketch is the place that we slow down, engage our brains and rework as much as necessary until we get things correct. There are two common downfalls in drawing. The first is impatience. For many of us, a sketch is tedious and delays the gratification of seeing a drawing come to life. There is a tendency to rush through the preliminary parts of our drawing, that include the important element of accuracy, to move to the more satisfying parts. The second is the fear of mistakes. For many of us there is the pressure to get things “right”. Oddly, the idea that we cannot make mistakes in our process can create the temptation to leave marks the page that are not correct, simply because they were the first marks we made.

Going into the sketch portion of your drawing with the expectation to make “mistakes” takes the pressure of perfectionism out of the picture. It is difficult to be willing to erase a mark you’ve lovingly placed, but be willing to change it and work at it until it is right.

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Learn to see the basic shapes

First let’s have a quick practice at seeing the basic shapes within a bird. (Animated GIF of appearing shapes over bird image, take away image) It may take some imagination and practice for this to become a natural process, but over time it will become more second nature to break down a complicated shape into smaller, more basic parts to see the structure. Remember, you’re not looking to fit your bird sketch into a mold with a certain type/number of shapes. What you’re really doing is attempting to make connections in your brain between what you are observing and pieces of information you already have. It sounds a bit unbelievable, but by making these simple comparisons such as, “The head reminds me of a circle.” it creates new connections in the brain and your ability to see the object in front of you with more accuracy will increase.

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Step by step sketch

STEPS 1-7

1. Posture line: Start by sketching a line at the angle of the posture of the body. The oval we will draw for the body will be drawn on top of this line. Do not try to draw the angle of the bird overall, focus on the angle of the largest portion of the body. The head will often be set at a completely different angle. This line helps ensure you sketch the overall shape in the correct position.

   Circles: Visualize the circular shape of the body and head. Pay close attention to the size comparison between the two body parts. You do not have to over generalize the circle shape. The aim isn’t to over-simplify the structure into simple shapes, the aim is to make connections between shapes you already recognize and the shape you are trying to observe.

2. The beak line: The next trick is a great example of how knowing the way nature behaves can make us better artists. In many birds, and most songbirds, if you were to visualize (or sketch) a line where the top and the bottom of the beak meet and continue it out the back of the head, you will find that the eye will sit right on this line. The second benefit of this line is that it shows clearly how the bird’s head is tilted. These small details of angles can trip up an artist. It is the sort of small detail that causes that sensation of something being “off” in your finished drawing, but often not obvious enough to know what exactly it is that looks wrong.

3. Then draw the beak around that line, paying close attention to the size and shape of the beak. Is it short and fat? Skinny and sharp? It is important to notice that unless the bird is facing directly to the side, the beak shape WILL cross over and into the circle you’ve drawn for the head. You will see illustrated or simplified birds with a v-shaped beak popped right on the side of the head, but in real life birds are more often looking toward or away at an in-between angle. Add the eye sitting just on top of the line you’ve created, trying to study the shape, and the distance between the beak and eye closely.

4. Wing shape: As seen above, many wings can be simplified into one or more v-shapes or triangles. Estimate the length of the wing the best you can, realizing that as you add information to your drawing, it will become more clear whether you have accurately estimated the length. The wing is an area where I often have to make changes at a later stage.

5. Tail: Often you will find a triangle where the tail and the body meet, or a rounded V-shape when looking at the tail from the front. In this bird we barely see the space where the tail and body meet, but we do still see a small indication of the v-shape feathered section that I am referring to. Sketch this shape in to give the proper angle from the body and then draw the tail, paying close attention to the angle of the tail. Use a simplified shape that you plan to correct later or draw it with the nuance you see in it.

6.Perch and legs: There are a few ways to approach this last portion of our sketch. The bird we are drawing is not flying, but it isn’t floating. So we need to add a place for it to perch in order to draw the legs and feet. There are a few ways to add the branch or surface where a bird is perched. One way is to simply estimate. This is not a bad system. Lightly sketch a line roughly where you visually estimate the perch to be, keeping in mind that if it is too close or too far away it will impact the length of the legs.

7. Or an alternative method is to look between the legs at the negative space. You can visualize the shape that is created by the space between the legs and perch, and draw this shape. (In this case a thin triangle.) The lower edge of the shape will be the perch or top of the feet, and show you how far from the bird these need to be drawn. The legs can also be drawn by this method of visualizing the shape of the negative space. The same shape you have drawn, if drawn to accurately match the image, will also provide the inside line of the legs. You can follow it by simply drawing the opposite side of each leg.

*The alternative to adding the legs this way is to simple measure and visualize the angles of the legs. This will often create a triangle that has the same helpful effect of helping you check your work. Draw these angled lines very lightly onto the bird, paying attention to where they connect to the body, and then finish by drawing your thin bird legs around these lines.

Feet: For today, we will draw a simplified version of the feet. Often, the position of a bird’s foot will visually appear to be a dark mass of toes rather than a foot with distinct features to pick out.

Using straight lines, simplify the overall shape of the foot, ignoring the space between any toes. Not only is this helpful in ensuring that the posture of the foot is correct, and makes it much easier to draw, but it’s a helpful way to observe the way the feet work to better understand how to draw them in the future.

Lastly, once again we go to the negative space. See how the space between our toes and our shape create a triangle? Recreate those triangles within the geometric shape we used to draw the foot and then erase the outer lines. Voila. C’est finit.

perfecting the outline

STEPS 8-10

Congratulations. You have finished your basic map sketch. However, these next steps are arguably the most important. The reason being that without it, using the basic shapes would make our drawing look less realistic, rather than more. Drawing with these basic shapes can really increase the accuracy of your drawings, UNLESS you get to this point and leave it as it is. We’ve used two ovals to capture the proportions and shape of our bird, but as is, it can be reminiscent of another object made with stacks of circles… a snowman! That is why I warn students against “the snowman bird.” For some reason it is very difficult for young students to remember not to leave the ovals from their sketch in the final drawing.

If we trace the outline of a snowman onto our bird image, we see very clearly that is not the shape of the bird. So, before doing any details or shading in our drawing, we must take a moment to refine the outline and shape of the bird. DO NOT FORGET THIS STEP. I know you’re ready to see this drawing come to life, but trust the process. If you leave this step off, you would be better off to draw by simply studying the outline.

Taking a close look at the reference photo, draw a line coming from below the beak to meet the body. Then study the angle at the front of the head that comes out of the beak and then the shape of the head. Finally, following the outline you observe in the photo, connect the head to the body oval along the outline, adjusting the size and shape as necessary.

Now, erase the leftover lines from the original shapes…Ahhh, that feels good. Doesn’t it?

The last step for part one will be to lightly mark out the various color changes along the body and major wing detail. This allows your brain to visualize the bird’s 3D form better. The brain needs surprisingly little to be able to fill in the missing information and understand what is going on. Think about the wing detail with the shape basic shape breakdown as the overall sketch. You are taking a larger, more complicated shape and breaking it down into smaller, simple shapes. You do not have to add every detail, just focus on the big shapes within the wing. Taking a moment to add in the wing detail will save you from having to stop and re-engage that part of your brain once you’ve moved on to the artistic, intuitive part of the drawing.

Whew, you did it!

Way to go, you’ve created your basic sketch. Now go have a cup of tea first, or move straight to part two of How to Draw Realistic Birds by clicking here!

Wait, there’s more!

You may be an adult, but that doesn’t mean you can’t watch the free video tutorials for kids from my Outschool class, here. Be sure two watch the learning video and the guided drawing video of a Black-capped Chickadee.

Or, get your copy of my children’s book about birds, Little Birder: A Field Guide to Birds of the Alphabet here.

Check it out!

Sometimes at this stage we have to trust the process even when it doesn’t feel like it is looking great. How do you feel about your sketch? Let me know in the comments below.