Shapes

“What do you want to draw?” my friend asks me, but I don’t know.
“A bird, I guess. I draw a lot of birds.”
Draw a bird then is the obvious answer but I want it to look real; I’m a bit weary of swirly birds with squiggly plumes. All the art books and learn to draw this and that are unhelpful, unless I want to draw the same picture they’ve drawn over and over again. I’d rather not, I want to draw my own bird. I understand shading and lines and all that jazz, just… not how to draw, somehow.
“Just, sort of, some lines…” says my friend, cryptically, “Not detail. Practice it.”
“Like a cartoon?” I ask, doubtful about how this will help me.
“Like an idea. Shapes, you understand it?”
No. But that’s nothing unusual.

So I looked at a bunch of pictures of birds, in every style known to man, then closed all that up and wandered off to draw some birds. Want to see what happened?

Bird one:
Shapes, you understand it?

This was my first bird. It’s about my usual speed, just some shapes. A functional, recognizable bird, but pretty bland.

Bird Two:

I coloured this one in an effort to convince myself I liked it. I didn’t, I hated it. Although now that I look at him again six hours later, he’s kind of cute. He could grow on me. A more stylish bird, more personality than the first go. He’s still shapes.

Bird Three:

It’s the return of the squiggly. I thought I said I didn’t want to do that, but he needed something to assure me he wasn’t a penguin, because he looks for all the world like one, even with it. Someday, I might want to draw a penguin, so I figure he’s alright.

Bird Four:

He’s my renewed effort at the previous style, in an attempt to be less penguiny. He still looks like he has a questionable lineage, but if I hadn’t pointed it out five seconds ago, you probably wouldn’t have noticed. He’s alright. He looks a little perplexed. I like that, I feel that too. He’s less geometric and more stylized. I didn’t notice much at that point, I was just kind of busy fonding pencils.

Bird Five:

I started with the same body shape as the previous, and this is what I ended up with. Holy crap, it’s a bird. Like, for real a bird. I think I may understand it.

Final bird:

Same shape as before. Apparently, I do understand it, now. It’s not going to win any awards, but after one hour of bird drawing, I think that is one hell of a progression.

Explore posts in the same categories: art, drawing

Tags: art, birds, drawing, random

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