How to Draw a Realistic Bird using Coloured Pencils | Step by Step Drawing Tutorial

hello everyone welcome back to my channel so in today's video I'm going to be showing you how I drew this Kingfisher bird out using colored pencils and also solvent for blending few patrons over on patreon I have got the real-time version of this with voiceover so you can follow along with me and I've also got a real-time tutorial for how I created a really accurate initial sketch for this drawing using a free handing method so you can also learn how you can create an accurate sketch of this bird before you add the colored pencil so I'll leave a link in the description so that you guys can check that out also I've also listed all the materials in the description if you want to have a look at them as well but anyway let's get on with the tutorial so the first thing that I did was I did create the sketch and then I lightened the portion that I'm working on up with the kneaded eraser so that you won't see all of the sketch marks through the colored pencil because that won't look great on some of the lighter areas and then what I want to do is I want to establish the darkest areas first so I'm using the fabric a stale black polychromos pencil and I'm just using that to establish where all of the main darkest shadows are on the bird's face so I am using a reference photo for this so that I can get everything really accurate and so I can see all of the little details and I'm just using the black on mainly the eye and the beak as the darkest part and then I'm just using it to block in the darkest portions of the feathers when you're blocking in the feathers make sure that you look at the direction that they're going in because this is really important to make it look natural and realistic otherwise if you have the clumps of feathers going in with directions and it might not look realistic and anatomically correct so once I've blocked in all of the darkest parts I'm going in and adding the colors so with this Kingfisher birds there was a lot of blues and also orange yellows and red tones in there as well so I'm just doing a base layer of this because we're using solvent for blending we don't need to worry about the detail for this first layer because I just want to get in all of the colors and then we'll blend it out using the solvent and it will get rid of all of that grainy look it'll make it look nice and smooth and it gives it a nice tillie luck so I'm just layering all of the basic colors so that I got get all of the basic colors established across the whole of the bird's face I'm now building up the darker blue tones for the shadows in the feathers I'm just looking at the basic clumps in the feathers I'm not blocking in all of the main details I'll do that once I've been did it out with solvent I'm also building up another layer of the black to give it more depth and I will add some more gray tones to the top of the beak when you're using solvent to blend it's really important that you have enough of the pigment down on the paper so that when you go in with the actual solvent it has enough pigment to blend and mix around otherwise it will give a very grainy look if you don't have enough pigment down on the paper to start with a great positive of using solvent is that it means that you can preserve the tooth of the paper and can add additional layers on top and really do a lot of layering and it also means that once you've used solvent you can add lighter layers on top of the dark shadows so for example I can add little white highlights on top of the black areas which is really good and something that you can't really do with the burnishing method so once I've added that first layer I'm now going in and I'm adding the solvent so I use a slightly bigger brush for the large areas and then for the details I'm using a smaller brush for the solvent I'm use it and there's s tip pencil blend but you can use paint thinner or there's lots of other things that you can use for solvent for colored pencils but I'm using the zested pencil blend and I really like this when you're blending out the first layer you can use more a bit on your paint brush and then as you blend out multiple layers try and use less and less otherwise it might ruin some of the layers underneath so now I'm going on and I'm adding the second layer I did weigh about half an hour for the actual solvent to dry you don't have to weigh that long but the longer you can leave it the better especially once you've blended out the first layer because you use the most solvent for this and so you really want to make it's fully dry before you go and try and add color pencils over the top otherwise if your paper is still a bit wet then you could be damaging the tip of the paper so for this second layer the first thing that I did was I use the white Karen - luminance color pencil and I used that to create little details and highlights and create more detail in the feathers so I went through the whole of the bird's head and I just pulled up some of the feathers I looked at the reference photo and looked at the direction of where the feathers were going in and also where the highlights were I created little highlights in the eye to make it look three-dimensional and then once I've done that I'm going in with the shadowed color so I'm going in with the polychromos black and I'm just using that to define some of the shadowed areas a bit more and create more kind of details in the shadowed parts of the feathers so for doing feathers I like to use little line pencil strokes rather than circular motions and I like to just keep layering lots of different colors to make it look realistic I don't leave the black on its own I will be layering other colors over the top of it otherwise it will look a bit too flat so I'm especially adding some shadowed towards the right-hand side of the feathers but I will be adding a lot of Blues over the top and I'm also darkening up part of the beak and also the eye as well so once I've added all of the white highlights and all of the black for the shadows I now want to improve the saturation levels so I want to give more brightness and more kind of vibrancy to the feathers so I use some more blues I used some turquoise colors and I used some darker blues and I just add those colors on top of the white highlights to glaze them and give them more tone and also the darker blues on top of the black so that it looks more rich and more vibrant rather than just looking flat and dark I also use these colors to transition from those really dark shadowed black areas into the white highlights so it's not so sort of dramatic and it just gives it a bit more vibrancy and types of the saturation so I'm also adding some yellows and some more oranges and the more layers you add the more kind of smooth it looks and you really do get rid of that grainy look with the more layers you add so just look at the reference photo look at the different clumps of the feathers and how they go you know the length of the feathers how they layer on top of each other where the shadows are where the highlights are and also the direction that they go in in the feathers on the actual face tends to be a lot shorter than the feathers that are on the body that were going to be doing in a minute so bear that in mind weren't sure kind of doing different areas that they will have different lamps and they will be going in different directions so once I added all the colors I went in again with the white pencil just to use that on the really bright areas I pressed quite hard once I know that I've got hardly any layers left to do on the face so that I can really burnish that white pencil into certain areas and really make them pop and now I'm going in with the black again to just hype up the contrast make sure the shadows are as dark they need to be and the highlights are as light as they need to be and that's basically it for the face as we carry on we could change bits of the face here and there if we need to but that's the majority done for the face and now we're moving on to the body so the first thing that I did with the body again was I used very similar techniques I went in and blocked all of the darker shadows out first with the black pencil and then I'm starting to layer the basic colors as you can see I just went and added that blue across the whole of the feathers I'm not worrying about detail I do add some of the darker blues in to kind of add the depth and indicate where the shadows are going to be but I'm not adding every little detail in the feathers just yet because it'll be very pointless to do that because the solvent would just blend them all out anyway and get rid of all that extra detail so another thing is I like to use the same similar sort of colors across the feathers so the feathers were used on the head I'll use the same sort of Blues on the body and yellows and oranges so it's all kind of cohesive with the rest of the drawing that you've already done so again I'm using that solvent to blend out this first layer and I just love how it gives this nice painterly look it makes it look like her painting and it gets rid of all of that graininess which I just love and I love the fact that you can go and layer lots of different colors over the top now I like that you can add light colors over the top of the dark areas that's why I love using this technique so much for doing animals so again I let that dry and now I'm going in with a white pencil to pull out the details and create the highlights so I don't just add the white pencil where I need the highlights I just add it anywhere to add bits of detail because like I said you can go over and glaze darker colors over the top of it but the white actually just adds kind of the detail as well so I might layer some blues over the top to darken it up because not every area is highlighted but it just creates a nice level of detail so I'm just going throughout all of the feathers and I'm just looking at the reference photo and add in the details you don't have to get exactly every little detail in the correct place just go for clothes look at the direction that the feathers are going in and just basically follow the general direction follow the general clumps of feathers but don't try and draw in every tiny little detail in the feathers exactly the same as the reference photo because it doesn't have to be just look at the general and AskMe of the bird in the reference photo and use as a guideline another thing is to take your time this can be quite a lengthy process and if you get tired you might be tempted to rush through it but if you do feel like that then just take a break and come back to it because it will be worth it in the end to really just spend that time making it look really really detailed and try not to rush through it also where I want these more dramatic kind of feathers I'm applying more pressure onto the white pencil to make them really stand down another thing to mention is that when you're doing this you will want to keep your pencil really really sharp so that these individual details are really crisp especially with the white can - pencil because it has more of a tendency to lose its point a lot faster because it's a creamier sort of letter rather than the fabric castell polychromos so just bear that in mind keep your pencil really sharp so that you can get these really defined details so again now I'm adding the shadows with those dark blues in that black and I'm just adding the kind of shadows under the feathers so I want to make it look three-dimensional and make it look like that is the layers of feathers so it's important to look at your reference photo and notice where the shadows are and how the feathers kind of affect the other feathers so how the lower feathers the lower layers are affected by the layers of feathers on top of them so just make sure you're looking at your reference photo so now I just blocked in the foot and the log I went in and I used solvent to blend out wait for it to dry and then I'm just layering some more colors over the top to render it a bit more but that's basically it for this tutorial I hope you found it useful and you learnt something new if you're new to my channel and you want to see more tutorials make sure you subscribe and tick that by like onset you don't miss out on my future videos also remember if you guys on patreon I've got the real-time versions of that over on there as well as lots of other different tutorial series like creating portraits and also of the wildlife use in lots of four mediums thanks for watching and I will see in my next video bye guys you

Channel: Kirsty Partridge Art

Views: 614,042

Keywords: drawing, drawing tutorial, how to draw, how to draw a bird, bird, tutorial, realistic drawing, coloured pencil, colored pencil, learn how to draw, draw, drawing animals, easy drawing, blending coloured pencil, realistic, how to draw a bird in coloured pencil, bird using coloured pencil, how to draw a realistic bird, drawing a kingfisher, how to draw a kingfisher bird, realistic bird using coloured pencil, drawing animals in coloured pencil, coloured pencil bird

Id: um-3OnzOtN8

Length: 13min 21sec (801 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 25 2017