How To Sketch and Draw Realistic Birds in Charcoal

Welcome to the second class in the Charcoal Series!

As always, this series is all about learning how to have fun with charcoal pencils and using them to create beautiful drawings! In this class, we shall be focused on creating a realistic bird using charcoal pencils.

Join me as I take you through my process of laying down the sketch just by observing the reference image, laying down the values, and finally bringing it all together to a final, striking piece of work.

This class may be geared more towards those with some experience in sketching. However, my previous class on how to sketch and draw a puppy in charcoal may be a good starting point in figuring out a simpler sketching method before advancing to the methods used in this class.

The basic materials needed are:

• Charcoal pencils. Having 2-3 pencils of a variety of hardness is great. I mainly use my 6B, 4B, and 2B pencils, and sometimes add in my basic hard charcoal pencil.

• Graphite pencil.

• Kneaded eraser.

• Tombow mono zero eraser. If you can't get this, you can use a razor to shape a hard eraser into a slim point to make the bright highlight details.

• Blending stumps. If you don't have this, you can use q-tips.

• Sharpener.

• Any soft-bristled brush you have available. Anything between a size 4 and size 8 is enough.

• Heavier, rough paper to draw on.

• A piece of spare paper to prevent smudging.

• Masking tape.

• You may want to use some kind of fixative spray on your work to avoid any kind of smudging and preserve your work.