Illustration + Nature Sketching
Just a quick post this week with a very special bird sketch: hoopoes have a beautiful large crest and interesting patterns and colors. All in all, a very impressive animal. It’s a joy to draw these birds. I hope you enjoy the process! Sketching a hoopoe (video) More resources for sketching & painting birds:Tips for … Read more
In this bird painting video, I show a detailed painting of a ruby-throated hummingbird. These little creatures are amazingly colorful and with their iridescent feathers they look like sparkling jewels. So sketching a hummingbird can only be an attempt at capturing their exceptional beauty. In hindsight and after studying more references of this particular bird, … Read more
This week’s video features a really special bird: the lapwing (Vanellus vanellus). This small black-and-white bird with the characteristic crest is endangered in Germany by extensive agriculture (highly threatened status on the German Red List). Watch the video to hear some interesting cultural anecdotes about this bird, and learn how to paint iridescent feathers – … Read more
In this week’s bird video, I show how you can use ink for sketching and add watercolor on top later. This is a great way to create more solid, pronounced linework, and you still have color. For this one I used a dip nib for more modulated lines, but you can also use a fountain … Read more
I’ve found a few bird painting videos that I recorded a while ago and then forgot about (2020 is a huge blur in my memory). The first one I’ll share is a painting demo for a blue jay – an exceptionally beautiful bird with an interesting range of blues in the plumage. I decided to … Read more
Winter is a good time to watch and sketch birds, so this sketchbook tour will be full of birds. There is little else going on here at the moment, we had quite a bit of snow that’s thawing now, and anything more than walks in the neighborhood is out of the the question. Hope you … Read more
Today I have a really detailed sketching demo for you, I take you through the entire process of sketching a double page in my nature journal, from basic sketch to color. The video ended up being quite long, as I recreated a great autumn day outside in my sketchbook – encounters with ravens, starlings and … Read more
After years of bird-watching, I have a pretty good grasp on song birds, but I still can’t tell a lot of birds of prey apart. They all look more or less majestic and have awesome brown and white-colored plumage. Starting this summer, I’ve set out to become better at learning what my local birds of … Read more
Here’s another coast scene in watercolor (and a bit of gouache). I have a lot of fun doing these with my old vacation pictures! When painting landscapes in watercolor, you can slowly build up layers of color and give a lot of depth to the objects you paint, like rocks or water. And if you … Read more
Here’s another short tutorial that’s available in full length in the How to draw birds class: I’m painting a goldfinch in watercolor. Goldfinches are pretty, colorful birds that I often see in late summer when they’re feeding on sunflower seeds. Like many finches, they love all kinds of seeds, and they have the right beak … Read more
One of the new tutorials in How to draw birds is a barn owl. These big birds are so beautiful – I recently watched one, just before the lockdown began, in a local wildlife park, and later made this painting from a reference. Their plumage is a joy to paint with the small light and … Read more
In the past weeks I’ve been working on an update for my bird drawing class. I’ve added 7 new bird painting tutorials to the class. You requested most of them like the goldfinch, red cardinal, mallard, woodpecker and waxwing. Although the class focuses on drawing songbirds, I’ve also added two tutorials that feature raptor birds: … Read more