Feathered friends are easy to draw

Depicting our feathered friends requires keen vision, attention to detail, a good memory and ability to draw with pen or pencil. There are birds that always take to water such as ducks and swans found in lakes and ponds. When swans are on guard, they are rather like a white passenger ship cruising along. Notice the swan I have sketched - a line drawing with pen and ink. Figure 1.

I used a fine pen with a thin nib for putting in the feather detail shown on the second illustration (bottom).

Birds are now thought to be the only living relatives of dinosaurs because they have a similar bone structure, are warm blooded, lay eggs and make nests. The most common birds are the sparrows and they are known as garden birds.

I have drawn wing and feather details to show you how they fit together in Figure 2. One at the top is a detailed line drawing, and the middle and bottom drawings are also line drawing using a thin nib to give an impressive look with pen and ink. It's not necessary to put in all these details when producing fast sketches from life. Notice how the three species seem to look alike, but a close study would reveal that they are slightly different in wing, tail and beak formation.

Those of us who have a garden may frequently see a black bird searching for a tasty worm or two. At times a mother bird collects insects for her young which are in a nest.

From time to time you will observe a cat, magpie or occasional squirrel trying to grab the young garden birds for their food. These species are enemies of garden birds.

Copy the examples of all the drawings and keep on practising until you become perfect at drawing birds.