How to draw: A Chicken

We have not drawn any birds yet, and I think it foul. Therefore, I shall start us off on a fowl! In today's blog, I will show you how to draw a chicken in a couple of easy steps. We want the chicken to be perceived as being white, so we will not need to add a lot of colour. This is the ideal drawing with which to introduce you to graphite bars. Graphite is the stuff that is put in grey pencils. However, it is also manufactured in bars, without the wooden casing. This makes it brilliant to use on the side, or to draw straight lines with, etc. I'll add a couple of colour bars into the demonstration to boot.

You will need a sheet of paper and a pencil to start today's drawing on.

The chicken's body is shaped like a large oval. The head is a much smaller circle above it.

Draw the neck, the comp and the start of a leg.

Add the tail and continue developing the legs.

Draw the feet and the facial features.

Add more feathery detail.

Finalize the detail.

Redraw the chicken in ink. I used a black marker with a fine point.

These are the graphite bars I was telling you about in the first paragraph. They come in hard, medium and soft. The softer the graphite is, the more of it will be left on the page, resulting in darker lines. Some bars are even labelled 2B, 4B, etc. You also get coloured bars.

I start with the hardest bar that will give me the lightest markings.

I then add a dash of colour to key areas.

This is followed by the medium tone.

Lastly, I add the deepest shadows with the darkest bar.

I add a dash more colour with yet another bar.

As the graphite can easily smudge, I opt to fix it to the page with fixative. You can also use hairspray.

The final drawing.

Marietjie Uys (Miekie) is a published author. You can buy my books here:
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