How to Draw a Bird

Today we are showing you how to draw a bird with ease! Birds are one of the most beautiful creatures in nature, and with our step-by-step drawing guide, you'll be able to bring your love of birds to life. By capturing the elegance of the curves and the texture of the feathers, you can create bird clipart, festive Christmas illustrations, and sublimated mugs that can be personalized.

Create your bird illustration using any medium you are comfortable with. Your drawing medium can include paint, pencils, pastels, and even digital apps like DesignScape.

Learn how to use DesignScape to make sublimation designs that you can use on mugs, tumblers, bags, and so much more.

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Step 1 - Sketch the Base Shape of the Bird

We will create the foundation for our bird drawing by sketching its basic shape. To make sure you can make adjustments as needed, we recommend starting with a sketching medium that can be easily erased or covered up, such as a pencil.

Draw the Head and Body

Start by drawing a small circle for the head (shown in red). Then connect the head to a large oval for the body. The oval should be three times the size of the head, with a flat back, as seen in our blue line below.

Shape the Wings and Tail

Following the straight line for your bird's back, create a long narrow rectangular shape for the tail (see the red sketch). Then, draw a leaf shape for the wings inside the body, starting at the head. You will notice that the wing is drawn at an angle, not straight down or to the side.

Add the Details

Let's add details to our bird sketches, such as the eyes, tail, and legs. Start with small details on the head, like the eye, and a triangle for the bird's beak.

Moving down below the bird's body, draw the legs and feet. Looking at our green sketches, we have two legs with different visibility. Sketch a hook-like shape with three toe sections to create the legs and feet.

You can easily change how the legs and feet look using a reference photo in Procreate or on a digital device.

Step 2 - Create Texture on your Bird Sketch

Our bird's basic shape is sketched, and we can now add texture details for the feathers and pattern. On the wing and tail, draw curved lines to create feathers. You can make these small or large.

Next, add your bird's unique feather pattern. Our bird is a robin, so we sketched the design on the chest.

Step 3 - Make your Bird Sketch Permanent

Once you have added all your pencil sketches, switch to a permanent medium like a pen or marker. For our third step, we will trace over our rough sketches to make our bird outline permanent.

Pay close attention to your sketch lines and how you want your final outline to look. We will skip some parts of the sketches to create a clean line drawing.

Trace the Base Shapes

Begin tracing around the outer sketch lines of your bird's head, body, and tail. Make small bumps to create a subtle texture as you trace the sketch lines.

Create unique line work with Procreate brushes. You can find all types of inking, marker, chalk, and metallic brushes to fit your drawing style.

Continue tracing around your bird details like the eyes, beak, wing, and legs.

Add the Feather Detail

Finish your bird line art by defining the feathers on the wings and tail. Feel free to add extra fine details to your illustration. We added small peaks scattered on our bird’s head and body for additional feathering detail.

For the bird pattern sketch, we did not define it as we will use it as a guide when applying our colors.

Step 4 - Apply Color to your Bird

Your bird drawing is almost complete. In our fourth and final step, we will add color and highlights and apply blending to finish our animal illustration.

With your chosen color palette, apply your base color to your bird. For our example, we are making a robin illustration, so we used brown, gray, orange, and yellow colors.

Once your base colors are applied to your drawing, add lighter or darker shades to add depth.

Then blend the color shades to soften the gradients. You can use any method that works with your medium, like one of the 4 methods to blend in Procreate.

Great work on following along with our drawing guide and creating your bird artwork! Why not try experimenting with different shapes, colors, and species to add to your digital library? Just think how many projects and crafts you can create with your hand-drawn feathery friends.

Create and add more animal clipart with your bird graphic using our free drawing guides. You can learn to draw an owl for more flying clipart or decorate by drawing a leaf or two.