I guess I’ve always been a slightly-above-average artist. My college art teacher* apparently recognized the modest talent I had.
And I guess I’ve always liked watching birds - even though I was slightly afraid of the Killdeer that seemed to be following me as I walked through my grandfather’s fields on my way home. (I was maybe 10.)
It took me several decades to discover that I could combine pencil drawing with birdwatching. As of this writing, I’ve still only completed 3 colored pencil drawings of birds. But it’s a start. (I’m only in my 60s.)
All of these first attempts are based on actual photographs of birds that I’ve seen. The first is a Blue Jay, the next is a Sandhill Crane, and the last is a House Finch.
As you’ll see below, I tend to draw the male of the species because he’s usually more colorful than the female. Since I’m using colored pencils, it only makes sense to make this choice.
Blue Jay
For this drawing (and for the House Finch below), I used the method that I think many artists use: I traced the photo onto the drawing paper using carbon paper and special tape that’s easy to remove when you’re done tracing.
The Blue Jay actually was perched on a shepherd’s hook feeder pole. The brownish background I just kinda made up.
Sandhill Crane
This crane has a different artistic story.
The bird itself started as a photograph, but I asked ChatGPT to turn that into a coloring book style image and change the background. So, if you look close enough, you’ll see lots of black lines everywhere.
I didn’t just shade in those areas like a 6-year-old might do. Instead I shaded each area either as I knew it looked like from the photo (for the bird) or as I imagined it might look like (for the background).
I think it turned out rather nice, considering the method used.
House Finch
Both the finch and the background in this drawing are close to the original image - the bird being much more so. I took more liberties with the grassy background.
I plan to keep drawing birds from photos I’ve taken. It turns out I really do enjoy creating this kind of art. Maybe I’ll use some more advanced coloring techniques after I get a little better at the basics.
Don’t hold your breath though.
*The college was (D)MLC, a teacher-training college in New Ulm, Minnesota. So it’s not like I was taking a top-tier art class. Still, the professor was a decent artist himself. When I was sketching with various grades of black pencils in class one day, he asked if I’d ever used such pencils before. I hadn’t. He didn’t say any more, but I could tell why he’d asked.