Drawing Realistic Animals with Simple Shapes: Birds

Have you ever wondered how artists are able to transfer realistic drawings onto paper so effortlessly? Have you hoped that you could draw like that too? If you have, then this is the perfect class to get started on your journey to learning how to draw realistic animals.    

In this basic drawing class, we break down the basics of drawing to its fundamentals. Observation is key to drawing, and a lot of beginning artists skip learning how to break subjects down into shapes and how to relate the shapes to each other as a whole. They dive right into interesting details, which leads to frustration, as they miss the basic structure to hold all the details in the right place. 

Join artist and illustrator, Mirka Hokkanen, as she teaches you how to better observe your subjects, break things down and how to draw things proportionately. By the end of the class, you‘ll have the basic skills and more confidence in sketching and drawing realistic animals. We will be concentrating on drawing birds in this class.

You’ll learn how to:

• Understand shape language of birds
• Use a grid as a secondary guide
• How to observe shape relationships
• Draw birds from reference

This class is perfect for beginners who are looking to strengthen their drawing and observational skills. These skills will trickle into other areas of your art. You can use the same principles to add color and details to your work, to any subject matter and to other media like painting and digital art.  

The handout with exercises makes practice easy and fun. 

Materials needed for this class:

• Download and print out the handout, to have them right next to you for easy learning.
• Pencil
• Extra paper for drawing your final project
• Eraser or Kneaded eraser

What are you waiting for, let’s dive in!