How to Draw an Umbrella Bird
The tropical umbrella bird resembles its name--it has a black umbrella-shaped tuft of feathers arched over the top of its head. The umbrella bird should be drawn boldly, like a comic book drawing, with sharp, crisp black marker lines to emphasize the bird's striking asymmetrical profile, surrounded by brilliant amazon colors to set it off. This will be a three-quarter view drawing of the umbrella bird clinging to a branch in a tree.
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Things You'll Need
- 12 x 18 inch smooth white drawing paper
- Medium black marker
- Fine black marker
- Set of colored markers, water base
- Large chiseled black marker
Instructions
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How to Draw an Umbrella Bird with Colored Markers
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1
Make a line drawing outline of the bird and background using the medium marker. Fill almost two thirds of the page with the Umbrella Bird's body. Start drawing the curved, pointed gray bill with the medium black marker. Finish the beak, moving down, drawing long lines to illustrate the bird's distinctive "wattle." The wattle is a flap of skin, also called a dewlap or caruncle, that hangs beneath the beak of some birds, like a rooster.
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2
Draw the bird's belly, legs, and feet. Notice how the feet come out of the body smaller, and how they are bony and have no feathers on them. Draw them curled and grasping a tree branch. Move across the paper to where the back of the bird should be and draw its outline, carefully indicating where the folded wing and feathers are. Follow the back line down to draw the shape of the tail feathers.
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3
Now draw the head, eye and umbrella. Stand back from the drawing and estimate where the head and umbrella and the eye will be drawn. Look at the distances between the eye and the back of the head as well as the distance from the eye to where the tip of the umbrella will be drawn. Take the fine pointed marker and draw in the eye, being sure to draw it large enough.
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4
Draw the bird's umbrella. Note how it's arched like the curves on the underside of an umbrella and also how it looks like a giant comma. With the medium marker, draw in the back of the head (note how large and bulky the head is) arching the line over the head to the tip of the umbrella. Finish by connecting the tip of umbrella to the bird's top beak.
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5
Take time now to stand back again to observe the progress of the drawing. Look for areas that are out of proportion. In particular, check to see if the characteristics of this funny-looking bird are being captured properly. Make adjustments, using both medium and fine black markers. Thicken the lines around the eyes with the medium marker, correcting any errors.
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6
Take the fine black marker and draw in various sized leaves and branches around the umbrella bird. Keep the background simple, as the main focus of this drawing should be the bird.
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7
Color in the background leaves that surround the bird, starting with light yellows and ochres, progressing to brighter yellows, light greens, medium greens, olives and dark greens. Mix in spots of sepia, burnt umber and gray for branches peeking in and out of leaves as well as just a few bright blue spots for the sky showing through. Keep the background light to medium in tone, without blacks.
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8
Add gray to beak, legs and feet, adding touches of blue to add depth. Use black fine marker to add detailing, especially to the pattern of the claws.
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Finally, color in the entire body of the bird with a medium blue marker, adding stroke marks that replicate feathers, following the contours of the bird's body. When finished, repeat this same process with fine and medium black markers. To complete, add white detail to eyes.
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Tips & Warnings
Use medium and larger markers to outline the bird in the foreground, and finer markers to line in the background leaves. Doing so will make the drawing of the umbrella bird "pop" from the page.
Think of a raven with a tuft of feathers on its head when drawing the umbrella bird
Study the sumptuous bird illustrations of John James Audubon for ideas on how to draw intriguing-looking birds like the umbrella bird.
