Learn to Sketch: Spring Birds Scenery

Art is one medium that brings you closer to nature and there is no better way to understand Art than by observing the nature. This tutorial is a small attempt to bring the nature inside your house by sketching a spring scenery with the little birds.

Also, I intend to post this tutorial to serve as a guide on using some pencil shading techniques. Often we come across various pencil sketches and wonder how they made such masterpieces. Well, there lies not only the drawing skills but also awareness of the techniques and of course hours of patience labor. These techniques can't be mastered in a day but require a lot of practice. This post will highlight some of the shading techniques that have been used in the scenery made below.

This tutorial will show you step by step to create a small scenery with a wooden fence, a tree branch, tiny birds, flowers and a birdhouse. All the elements mentioned above are easy to draw and sketch, just observe closely and follow the steps. We actually converted a colored vector image found on the internet into a pencil sketch. Don't know who the vector artist is, but thanks to the unknown artist, we found a good art inspiration.

If you are a beginner, before you begin the sketch, you must be aware of some pencil shading techniques that you will need to apply in this sketch. In case you are indeed a beginner or wish to improve your sketching skills, do read this post on Sketching Basics that shows different sketching techniques using a graphite pencil to get a better idea on pencil sketching tutorial that I had posted earlier. 

For this 'Spring Birds' sketching tutorial, you need to learn linear shading, cross hatching and gradated shading techniques as shown in the reference guide below. Also, you will need to apply the wood-grain texture as shown below.

Pencil Shading Reference Guide

Now, let's start with the scenery. All you need for this sketch is a paper, HB and 2B pencils and an eraser. No fancy tools are required. We have used an A5 size printer paper.

Start by adding the outlines of the fence, the grass beneath and the tree branch. Use an H or HB pencil to roughly sketch the layout. This will help you to erase without leaving any dark pencil lines on the drawing sheet.

Next, we add a depth to the fence by adding more lines on the sides.

Now, add a bird house hanging from the tree branch.

Time to add the small birds on the fence and on the tree. We have not added any complicated bird shapes, just a simple doodle sketch of the bird will do for this sketch.

Next, add a few leaves to the branch.

Spring is incomplete without flowers. Add as many flowers you wish to near the fence, to the tree branch, and so on.

Once, all the detailed outlines are added with an HB pencil, time to start adding shades and textures to the sketch using a 2B pencil.

Here, we added pencil shading to the bird house. Oops forgot to add the pencil shading to the walls of the house...will see that in later pictures.

Now, we add the wood-grain texture to the fence with 2B or HB pencil.

Add pencil shading to the grass below the fence with 2B pencil. Use gradated shading or linear shading techniques.

Add, the wood-grain texture to the tree branch also. Add pencil shades to the flowers and the leaves. You can add either linear pencil shading or gradated pencil shading.

You can use the dark to light tone using gradated shading to the leaves and flowers preferably.

Complete the bird house by adding cross hatch pencil shading.

Add some gradated pencil shading to the tiny birds too.

Add some more foliage, creepers and/or flowers to the area near the fence.

Lastly, I added one more flying bird and done.

It was that simple...wasn't it? Do give it a try...

For those of you who wish to watch a quick snapshot, here's a quick view of the sketching steps on our youtube channel.

Try this beautiful sketch at home. I am sure you will enjoy making it as much as we did.

Here's another quick sketch made using the same pencil shading and textures. This cartoon is again an inspiration from a vector artist, but we have added the pencil textures and shades, and also some details as the bird and the flowers to the original sketch.

A Man Fixing a Fence - Pencil Sketching

Using the right pencil shading techniques and textures is as important as your drawing. Combine your drawing skills with the right pencil shading techniques and you will see the difference it makes to your drawings and sketches.

Thank you for stopping by.

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