How To Draw A Realistic Bird | Step-By-Step Colour Pencil Tutorial For Beginners

Hello and welcome back to my drawing board. My name's Teresa and if we haven't met yet, I'm a pet portrait and a wildlife artist based in Devon in the UK. I've got a lovely little project to share with you this week. I'm going to take you through this little bird that I drew for my sketchbook. It's not going to take very long to draw, probably maybe 45-50 minutes to draw the little bird. I'm drawing it on hot press paper. I'm not using too many colours for this particular project. I've put the colours here and I'll take you through those in a moment, but I've also created a list of the colours along with a line drawing that you can download and use and I'll leave a link to both of those in the description along with the reference photograph. So as I say, there aren't many colours that I'm using. Most of them are Polychromos colours. This one here, this is a luminance pencil. This is Naples Ochre from the Luminance range. You could obviously just use Ivory. That's Ivory from the Polychromos. So if you didn't have the Naples Ochre, you could use your Ivory. I'm also using a light lemon yellow from the Pablo. It's just got that extra little bit of green in it, which is quite useful to create the feathers on the little bird's chest. But again, if you don't have either of those two, you can just use your Polychromos Ivory and that will be fine. That's a white. I've just put a ring around that. That's a Polychromos white pencil. Then from the Polychromos range, I'm using a warm grey one, a warm grey two, a cold grey one, a Van Dyke brown, an olive green yellowish, a dark sepia, an ultramarine, a Payne's grey and a black. They're the only colours that I'm using. Of course, you can use any colours. They're not just the only colours that you could draw this little bird with. So any colours that you've got that's close or the closest colours you've got and that will be absolutely fine. If you enjoy this little project today, don't forget to give it a like before you leave. If you want more projects like this here on YouTube, don't forget to subscribe and click that little bell. And every time I put out a new video, you'll get a notification. And if you want more projects like this, when you finish this little bird, you can find more birds, more animals and nature over on my Patreon channel and I'll leave a link for that in the description as well. Okay, really hope you enjoy this project. Grab your pencils, grab your line drawing and let's get started. Okay, I have got my line drawing down on my paper. I'm not going to worry about taking any graphite lines off yet. I'm just going to go straight into the eye and get the eye in with a black pencil. It's a nice sharp pencil and very carefully I'm going to work around the outside of this eye. I'm going to be as careful as I can. I find little dashes help me get the shape of that eye in, in a nice natural way. I'm just going to work under the highlight as well. Just work around the highlight. It's not a very big drawing so there's not a lot I can put in and I'm not going to take a huge amount of time on the drawing. So I'm not going to build up any layers in the eye. So once we've got the eye in, let's have a look at getting some color into the head. I'm going to use my kneadable eraser and I'm going to dab off some of this graphite. I don't really want this graphite showing too much. So I'm just going to dab into that. I'm going to work on the whole of the head I think and then work down on the beak. So dabbing into. Sometimes you have to dab, sometimes you have to sort of drag it. Whatever works with your particular brand of eraser in your paper. There isn't a right, there isn't a wrong. I'm going to take the light grey pencil and I'm going to just work it. Now it's very small which is why I'm holding it sort of tipped over on its side a little bit. It's really quite small. I'm just going to work around this eye. I'm keeping it tipped over on its side so that I've got quite a large bit of pencil in contact with the paper and that's going to help me to get a nice even cover of pencil down on the paper. I'm just going to dab that little bit out there as well. It's going to help me to get a really nice sort of coverage down on the paper but it's also going to mean that I can get the pencil down quite quickly because I've got quite a large part of the pencil in contact. It's not completely over, it's just tipped up a little bit. I've got quite a large bit of pencil in contact with the paper and that's also going to mean that I've got some nice soft pencil lines as well. I've got a nice, you know, soft coverage is going to bring some nice soft feather textures into the little bird. So I've used the really light warm grey for that one and then I'm going to use the light cold grey for the bit that's on the top. You can see the bit that's on the top is just a little bit more of a blue colour and I'm going to take this all the way around the top of the head, working in the direction that the feathers are going in, so sort of working around in those, in that direction. I've left, there's a little bit of graphite there that you can see and I've left that in so that you can see where I'm working but you might want to take that out. You're not going to want graphite line showing through in the final drawing because it takes away from the realism a little bit. I will disguise that so it won't really be that obvious but it is there, I can see it so I would take it out if I was drawing without the camera. I'm just drawing the cold grey around here and around here as well, all the way underneath, just looking at the direction that that colour, or those feathers rather, those feathers are going down and along the bird. I'm going to create a few little feathers under here. Again I've just got in quite a strong sort of block of colour and it's quite even, it's quite an even coverage, I've not got any detail in there. On the top of the bird's head you can see that it's quite blue so I'm going to go in with a blue colour, I'm going to use ultramarine and it's quite a warm sort of blue colour, even though it's blue, got that little bit of the red coming through and I'm just going to work backwards and forwards in the direction that these feathers are going in, curving them over and I'm going to get, you can see I've got a coverage going down, it's quite a light coverage, you can still see that grey coming through underneath so it's starting to bring a little bit of texture in. I'm just going to work all the way staying away from this little bit here, working out towards the back, working out towards the back of the neck and then bringing it around and underneath and of course you can use any blue, you can use any blue that you want, it doesn't really really matter, just getting a little bit of blue in these darker feathers and do the same around here and again following the feathers so they're coming out and over the body so it's getting a little bit of blue into those feathers and I've used ultramarine because I think probably most people are going to have an ultramarine type colour in their sets but any sort of mid-tone blue doesn't have to be ultramarine, you can use any blue you want and there we go, got a little bit of blue in there, there we go. On the reference photograph, certainly on the screen that I'm looking at, I can see some brown coming through as well so this is a mid-tone brown from the Polychromos, it's a van dyke brown and I'm going to bring a little bit of this brown through, bring a bit of the brown into the mix so I can see that it comes just underneath here, also towards the top of the head, I've got the pencil tipped over on the side a little bit, again I'm working with the side of the pencil, it's not completely flat, it's tilted a little bit but it means that I've just got more of the pencil down on the surface of the paper, giving me a nice soft pencil stroke, so it's going to put some feather texture down quite quickly and it's going to put down in a nice soft, I'm going to tip the pencil up and use the pointer a little bit because I've just got to put this extra little ring around here, it's like a little eyelid isn't it, just shape that, okay, don't want to make it too wide, don't want to make it too narrow, it's always better to make it a little bit wider and then come back and close it up if you need to and then I will just take the pencil back on the side and take the brow towards the back and you can see having the pencil tipped on the side and I'm sort of pushing and pulling the pencil a little bit is actually helping to put some nice texture in, you see that I'm building that texture in already and then as we come around the front of the eye, where the texture starts to work towards the front, I'm just going to bring a little bit under the eye as well, I'm not pressing on hard, bring a little bit of texture. Now one thing I have forgotten to do is to put any base layer onto the beak, I'm just going to take my kneadable eraser and just dab the top of the beak a little bit and I'm coming back to my light cold grey, bringing that through into that beak there, there we go, I'm going to use my brown and just run a little bit of brown just where the top and the bottom of the beak meet, tiny little bit and then I'm going to go in with the pencil underneath, so just work under that brown that I've put in, just a sweep of the pencil is all I can get in because it's not very big, that's all I can get in, I will just take a little bit of the ultramarine, this is that blue colour, just bring a little bit of that in on the top, just to shape the top of that beak just a little bit, I'm going to stick with the black now and I'm going to use the black pencil, I'm going to work it sort of backwards and forwards, keeping the pencil on the paper but I don't want to create a solid colour, what I want to do is leave some little gaps for the brown and the blue colours to come through, creating some of these darker bits of feather texture, when I get to the eye I'm going to switch to circuit strokes, I just find that it helps me keep a much neater area around the eye, it helps me sort of stay in the area that I should be working in, if I just switch to little circuit strokes, it's like colouring in the lines really, I'm going to very gently just feather some of this black into the lighter bit underneath, just work this pencil with little feathery pencil strokes out towards the front of the beak there and I'm working it around the back as well and just letting it feather down and into that brown that we put down there, very gently letting the pencil feather into this white area that we've got in the middle, we've got this raw paper in the middle haven't we, I'm just going to feather that in as well and this is where lifting the pencil off at the end of the pencil stroke can be really really useful because it gives you that tapered edge, gives you a lovely tapered pencil or finish to the pencil stroke, let's just bring in a little bit of that, I'm using a really really light pressure, I don't want to press on hard or I'm going to lose that softness, bring that up through the beak and then start to feather under the beak, still with the black pencil, feather down under the chin, feather off under the chin, if I need to make things a little bit stronger with the black I'll just run that black over the same space a few times until I get more of an intense colour down on the paper, till I get more saturation down on the paper, when I work off the bottom of the shape as well again I want to just flick that pencil off to create some feathered strokes and I'm always looking at the reference photograph and I'm always looking at the direction that the fur is, or it's feathers in this case isn't it, but that the feathers are coming around the body, so I'm going to work the feathers just sort of very gently curving around before they start to curve over that way, so they come around and then they start to curve over that way, I'm looking at the reference photograph, letting some of that blue come through, bringing this dark bit down to the triangle there and then again just sort of gently working out, so I'm putting the black in but I'm not making it really strong, you can see here that I'm letting some of the other colour come through, I'm going to go back with this blue and I'm going to put the blue back over it again and I'm going to let the blue work all the way over the dark bit so it'll start to make the area look a bit more vibrant, start to make it pop a little bit, sometimes when you just use black and this is just my opinion, but when you just use black sometimes it can get a little bit flat, so putting another colour with it can be quite useful I'm going to take the blue over the top here as well because we want it to be quite intense, quite saturated but I don't want it to be all black, so I'm working the pencil over the top of the black and the blue that went down and in the direction that I can see these feathers are always looking at the direction, always checking the direction of any feathers or fur or anything that I'm drawing, I'm going to darken this down a little bit more but I don't want to necessarily put too much black in, at least not yet, I might put black in at the end but I don't want to do that just yet, so this is the Payne's Grey and I'm going to bring a little bit of Payne's Grey through the space, I can let it work into, even though Payne's Grey is quite a blue colour, I can still let it work down and into the area that had the brown in there, that's fine, when the blue and the brown mix, so the Payne's Grey and the Van Dyke Brown, it's going to mix and create almost like a lovely sort of charcoal colour, so it's going to be quite useful, I can let those colours mix and then I'm just going to take again pencil, tip over on the side so that I can get a nice, quite a big sort of chunky pencil stroke down and if the pencil breaks it doesn't matter, that's absolutely fine and I don't feel the need to sharpen that, certainly not at the minute, I'm also going to bring a little bit on the other side and here, you can see it's just sort of darkening down the feathers but without putting too much black in, so it's just, in my opinion it just puts an extra little bit of life in, just bringing other colours in, these little scribbles, I'm not going to be spending too long on this, just top up under that beak there just a little bit, I will just take the kneadable eraser and just dab that into the bit that's right on the beak to just create a few feathery bits right on the beak there, so I'm just shaping the kneadable eraser into like a long point and then just tapping it on, it just creates a little bit of texture right on the end there and then I'm going to use this, I'll round that down again and then what I will do is take the white pencil, this is the white pencil and just smooth out that bead, so we're looking to make the texture very similar to what it would actually be in real life and this would obviously be quite a sort of smooth surface on the beak, so adding the white pencil just smooth that out a little bit, okay so I want to work in this little bit in the middle here, I'm back to my blue colour and I'm going to just drag in really gently, I'm going to drag in some blue from the outside and I'm going to switch, that was the blue, I'm also going to switch to the black but I'm going to use this really, really gently and I'm going to just bring in a few tiny bits of feather structure just down around this cheek, now I haven't put a a base layer in here and I'm bringing this little bit of feather structure in and I haven't done that for a reason, I find that when I want a really sort of soft delicate texture like in here for instance, I find that putting a base layer down first, it doesn't always work because it makes the pencil that goes on top makes it really sort of heavy, so adding the texture, the pencil directly onto the wallpaper just gives me a slightly better finish, I'm just going to dab into that a little bit on that one side, soften that a little bit and then I'm going to take my my very light coal grey pencil and I'm just going to blend this out, so I'm pulling the pigment from the dark side and into the lighter side, blending out that blue that I've just put down and also sort of borrowing some of the pigment and bringing it over and into this light area, so it just colours it, just tints it, let's have a look at bringing some colour onto this body, I'm just going to do the yellow bit and I'm going to use a colour, this is actually Naples Ochre from the Luminance range, it's a really lovely colour, it's obviously quite a creamy colour but it's quite an earthy colour and I'm going to use this as my base layer, the one thing I do want to make sure though is that I haven't got any graphite lying right on the top of there and then I'm going to use this as my base layer for this little bird, so I'm going to bring a base layer around of this Naples Ochre, I'm not worried about the graphite line there because that's going to go really really dark but I'm going to want to make sure that there's a very little graphite line on the bottom, I'm just going to dab that out and then bring this around, don't need too much pencil in there, just work up to this graphite line again, I've got quite a strong graphite line there and I'm going to want to dab that out, just take out as much or as little of the graphite as you feel comfortable with, you don't have to take it all out, you can always take it out in the future when you feel a little bit more comfortable, so if you want to leave your graphite lines in, you can leave them in. I'm going to bring that down to the bottom and again there's a strong graphite line down there so I'm just going to dab on the graphite line and bring this base layer down, okay I've brought that down, once I've got the base layer in I'm going to use quite a light warm grey, this is Warm Grey 2 from the Polychromos and I'm going to start to shape this body a little bit so you can see it's a little bit darker around there, I also want to bring a little bit of this grey off the dark bit and we'll probably go back and we'll top this up because obviously as I'm blending it out it's becoming a little bit desaturated, so let's just bring some of this grey over the body, let's just bring it around here as well, around the side, curving it around, I've still got that pencil tipped over and I'm just bringing in some shape into this little bird's body and it's like a glaze really, it's just a glaze that I'm putting on over the top of that cream colour, I think I'll get this little bit in actually, so I'm going to go in with a base layer, I'm going to use my light warm grey that I was using, I'm going to get a base layer into this area, there we go, so I'll put that in and then I'm going to use the blue colour pencil because just around here there's a little bit of a blue colour, so I'm going to bring that in and just feather that into the cream area, a few suggestions of feathers there, this is a really, really beautiful olive colour, it's a polychromos colour, it's called olive green yellowish and it's a really lovely olive green colour, I'm going to bring a little bit in on the back of this little bird's wing here, I'm also going to bring a little bit of it just on the back of this neck here, I've got that pencil tipped over and it's nothing more than a glaze really, that's all it is, and then I'm going to use a really, really dark brown, this is a suggestion of some of these little feathers in, now it doesn't have to be perfect, I'm not trying to make it perfect, I'm just getting a suggestion of the feathers in the wing, that's quite a solid colour there, so I can fill that in a little bit, I'm just bringing a few little curves around, that's all it is, just a few curves around to suggest some feathers there, that will do, I'm going to do the same on this one, I've got this little bit working down, just a suggestion of the feathers, definitely doesn't have to be perfect, doesn't have to be exact, what I do want to do again, I'm tipping my pencil on the side so that I can get some really sort of broad pencil stripes, and starting to get in the structure of this little top of the wing isn't it, so the shoulder and the top of the wing, I'm going to use this warm grey and bring it as a base layer down in this stripe, that is a bird spot going down the front of his body, so I'm bringing the warm grey in as a base layer and then I'm going to use the black and I'm going to get this stripe and this pattern plotted in, I'm just topping up little bits as I work, so let's bring in a little bit of this pattern, just an idea of the pattern, don't need to take the pencil off the paper, it's giving me quite a nice texture just keeping the pencil on the paper, just going to work again in the direction that I can see this little stripes going in and also leaving bits in the middle, I don't want it to become a solid colour, I'm going to come back to this olive green colour that I was using, I'm going to bring a little bit of this olive green through the feathers, so I'm just working with the green to just break up some of this yellow that's here and just create a little bit of feather texture, I don't need to bring too much in, just bring that around a tiny little bit, again it's nothing more than a glaze and I'm just shaping this body just a little bit, bringing it around, I'm going to use another colour as well, this is a light yellow lemon from the Pablo range, a really nice sort of light lemon colour, I'm going to bring in this little tail as well so that I can just finish off the bottom bit down here, so let's just take out any graphite lines, let's go back in again with, this is the light grey, really light grey, warm grey pencil, just to get a bit of a base there in, pencil's tipped over on the side again so that I get a nice smooth surfacing and then I'm going to work in with the dark sepia, the really dark pencil, dark brown pencil and I'm going to just get some structure in this tail, so let's follow the tail feathers around, pencil's tipped over so that I get a nice soft pencil stroke in there, bring a few of those lighter fluffy tail feathers around the bottom, I'm just using the dark sepia pencil to do that, shape these feathers a little bit, so I'm just picking out the shapes, just looking for the shapes, picking out the shapes, I'm going to use a bit of the van dyke brown, bring it in to the middle of the tail, pencil's still tipped over on the side, I don't want the tail to be too strong really, I want obviously, and it's only a sketch anyway, so it's all a little bit sketchy but I still want the focus to be around the head, I don't really want too much to come through here, I'm just going to bring a little bit of tail feather through the back there and go, I'm going to work back in with the cold grey, sorry the warm grey, this is the warm grey under here and then the cold grey, that's why I say cold grey because I've got that one in my other hand, I'm just going to bring a little bit of cold grey across the top and just soften these feathers a little bit, there we go, and then just come back with the dark sepia again, just darken the bits that need to be a little bit darker, and just refining and reshaping little bits, I'm going to use my darkest cold grey that I've got in the pencil that's hiding here and that's the Payne's grey and I can start to shape the little legs, now I'm not going to be able to get too much in these little legs, I'm going to use this Payne's grey, I'm going to bring some of that really delicate feather texture through at the top of the leg up here and then just work along, looking at that reference photograph and just picking out some of the shapes, now I'm not going to be able to get too much in here at all, there's not a lot that I can get in there, so I'm just picking out something, a shape here, a shape there, something to make it look like a bird's leg, a little scribble here, a little scribble there, that will probably do, that's all I can do, it's only a sketch anyway, so that will be enough, I'll just demonstrate a little leg, I'm going to do the same on this one, so this one obviously comes out in the back and again I'm just following the shape, there's nothing here really that suggests that you can see that it is a leg, it's just a shape here, a shape there, but that will do because this is only a little sketch, so that will do, it's just something to give me the suggestion of these little feet, that will be fine, that's all I really need to do, I don't need to make everything really detailed and really refined all the time, it can be quite nice to just sit and do a sketch, let's just bring in a little bit of dark colour around here and let's just go back in, this is the Payne's grey and I'm just going to go back in and darken some of this and I'm coming towards the top of the layers now, I'm not going to put too many layers down on this because like I say it's just a little sketch, so I can press just a little bit harder if I need something to be a bit more intense or the nice thing about this paper is that it doesn't really have, it's got two so you can put the texture in, but it doesn't really have a lot of texture that you have to work through, you can get the texture, you can get through the texture quite quickly, so I don't really need to put layer after layer down to get through the texture, a little bit of Payne's grey around the body, just letting the dark little stripe just blend out into the rest of the body, I've got the pencil tipped over on the side so that it's really, really light pressure, I can't get any pressure down at all, I'm going to use my kneadable eraser and just drag a little bit of a lighter colour out right on the bottom down there, because it's just a little bit light, so I'm just dragging that out and I'm going to use the warm grey, this is the warm grey one, I need an edge on it, so I need it, I need something to be there, but it's quite light, so just blending that towards the edge, and then I will just use this pencil, this green and grey pencil, to just blend over those darker marks that I've just put in, just soften those out, so that we've got the suggestion of the little feet there, there we go, I'm going to bring in this green again, I don't want to bring too much green in, but just a little bit through these feathers to define some of the shapes, building a little bit of structure, and then that is nearly it really, I'm going to just take this, I could probably do with a slightly stronger yellow in there actually, this is cream from the polychromos, and I'm just going to bring in a slightly stronger cream colour on the bottom, and probably a little bit in there as well, there you go, and then this is the, this is my warm grey too, and I'm just going to shape some of this body, and I think that is pretty much it, that's all I really need to do, it's just a nice little sketch, I will just bring in the, use the van dyke brown and with the pencil tip on the side, just give it something to sit on, so just bring a suggestion of that branch through, and there we go, a quick drawing of a little bird ready for my sketchbook, really hope that you have enjoyed drawing along this quick little project with me, I find these little sketchbook projects are really good, they don't take very long, they're really good at perhaps loosening up those pencils, just getting those pencils working before I work on something that is perhaps a little bit bigger, takes a little bit more work, or it's just good to sit down with a cup of tea for an hour, and take a bit of time out with the pencils, if you want more projects like this, don't forget to hit that subscribe button, and click that little bell, and you'll get a notification when the next video is available, don't forget to give it a like, don't forget to give it a hype, really hope that you have enjoyed drawing with me, if you want to upload your little drawings into the community here on YouTube, I've got a community area, you can upload those, I'd love to see your drawings once you have finished, and if you're uploading them onto social media, whether that's Facebook, Instagram, don't forget to tag me, so that I can see your finished little projects too, okay, that's it for this week, thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next video, bye for now.