How Do I Do a Watercolor Painting of a Bird Feather?

You only need a few colors to paint a feather in watercolor.

Creating a painting of a bird feather using watercolor paints is a two-step process. First, you must draw the feather, and then you must paint it. Since watercolor dries quickly, it is important to get the paint down in an expiated manor so that the colors can mix while wet. If you layer the colors after one color has dried, you will get hard edges. When painting feathers, you only want to create soft edges.

Things You'll Need

• Watercolor paper
• Pencil
• Watercolor paint (eggshell white, burnt sienna, zinc yellow and yellow ocher)
• Small, round watercolor brush
• Water

Instructions

1. Draw the hollow tube in the center of the feather onto the watercolor paper. This is called the shaft of the feather. Draw a tube that is wide at the top and gradually tapers into a fine point. Make the wide end of the shaft end in a C-shape.

2. Add the barbs to the shaft. Instead of drawing each individual barb, create the illusion of barbs instead. Start drawing the barbs one-third of the way down the shaft and draw a rounded V-shape all the way around the shaft's tip.

3. Draw the afterfeather. Afterfeather is the tufts of down at the bottom of the feather. Hold your pencil in the middle and loosely draw strokes from the shaft outward to create afterfeather tufts below the barbs.

4. Add a few V-shaped lines to the edges of the barb area for definition.

5. Paint the shaft using eggshell white paint. Add a brush of burnt sienna mixed with a zinc yellow to the widest area of the shaft. The ratio of burnt sienna to zinc yellow should be one part zinc yellow to four parts burnt sienna.

6. Wash out your brush by rinsing it with water.

7. Load your brush with burnt sienna mixed with eggshell white. The ratio of white to burnt sienna should be one part white to eight parts burnt sienna.

8. Paint the barbs with the paint mixture.

9. Wash out your brush.

10. Load your brush with yellow ocher.

11. Paint wispy lines from the shaft to the outer edge of the barb area. To paint a wispy line, hold your brush in the center, place it on the paper, and flick the brush outward by twisting your wrist.

Tips & Warnings

• Load your palette with premixed paint before you start to save time while painting.

• Avoid painting underneath ceiling fans. They will dry out your paint more quickly.

References

• "Watercolor A to Z"; Grant Fuller; 2008
• "The Techniques Book"; David Norman; 2002

Resources

• WatercolorPainting.com: Painting Tutorials