A British Christmas is not complete without the robin. Not only are they the now official national bird of the UK, but they are also a favourite on festive cards. That red breast and puffed up look while posing in the snow or amongst some holly is what we usually see on these cards with a season's greeting from a friend or relative inside. So for this rather festive How To Draw, I have decided to keep with tradition and draw a robin for you all.
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| Stage One |
To create my Christmas robin, I draw a circle for the head and a large circle for the body.
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| Stage Two |
Next, I divide the shapes up. I shade in a bill and an eye. Above the bill and eye, I draw and shade in the cap, back and a wing which droops downwards slightly. From the wingtip, I draw a rectangle that forks at the end for the tail and shade it in with lines of various shades. The body is improved in shape as I divide it up to form the breast and the puffy feathers using rounded shapes and lines. The legs and feet are just shaded lines.
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| Stage Three |
With my biro, I draw over the pencil, improving the shape further as I go. I shade in dark areas and scribble around the body to create the puffy look on the feathers.
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| Stage Four |
With a yellow pencil crayon, I lightly shade the breast in and lighter still with the rest of the body. The back was coloured brown with a layer of yellow over the top of it.
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| Stage Five |
I then apply a light layer of orange on the breast before building on it with heavier layers. On the white underside, I add light scribbles of brown, orange and grey.
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| Stage Six |
I'm not done yet! To improve the body further, I decided to use a white chalk pastel. I scribble lines of chalk and rub it in slightly and blow away the excess chalk. I then play around with the pencil crayons and the white chalk pastel to get the layers to the way that I want it, making the robin appear soft and fluffy in texture. The back was also given a layer of brown pastel with white pastel as a highlight. I also use my biro to redraw the outlines and to add into the white pastel for extra texture. When applying the pen to the white pastel, I smudge it in very gently after every mark I make.
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| Stage One |
If you are an American reader, you are probably thinking "that's not a robin!" Well actually, your robin isn't a robin at all but a species of thrush. You see when the first Europeans settled in America, they saw this thrush with a red breast and they started calling it a robin after the ones back in Europe. So that you don't feel left out, I decided to draw the American robin for you (it is Christmas after all). The basic shapes for your American robin is a circle for the head, an oval for the body and a line for the tail.
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| Stage Two |
Now create a rectangular shape for the tail, a triangular point for the wing which continues through the centre of the oval. Divide the wing with lines and rounded shapes. Improve the shape of the head and add a bill and an eye. Draw a ring around the eye and make lines on the throat. The legs are a set of double lines that meet up at the joint and then continues down to the toes.
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| Stage Three |
Redraw the outline in pen and rub out the pencil. Shade in the back lightly, the breast extremely lightly and the head and tail completely black. Leave the eye ring white.
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| Stage Four |
Finally colour your American robin in. Grey, brown and black on the back, yellow for the bill, brown for the legs and the breast is orange and red with black as a light highlight.
I wish you a merry Christmas wherever you are in the world and I hope you will continue drawing well into the new year. Merry Christmas everyone!
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