A quick how to draw a Sankofa bird tutorial.
Things you'll need:
a pencil,
a rubber,
a felt tip pen or fine liner pen.
I've chosen one with a pointy tip
because I like how versatile it is,
but you could have any felt tip.
Now I've chosen black, but that's just
because I like a strong outline.
You could use any colour at all that you like,
just any pen that you've got lying around at home.
So let's get started.
I'm going to start by drawing the legs
as it's the centre point of the image that we are drawing.
Now I'm using pencil to sketch first
and I'm drawing lightly with my pencil,
in case I need to rub out any mistakes,
that way I won't make too much mess.
I'm also drawing lightly as I might need to go
back over some of my drawing lines,
and redraw - like what's just happened there.
Okay, legs done!
Next I'll draw the main part of the body.
I'm always looking at my Sankofa bird image whilst i'm drawing it.
It's always good to draw from observation where possible,
especially when you're learning.
It will help you to really look at the shapes that
make up the thing that you're drawing, and also help you to look
at the shape and the directions of the lines
that make up the thing that you're drawing.
When you're drawing from observation you're kind of
looking as much as you are drawing.
We're going to continue with the outline of our
shape, the shape of our bird now.
I always like starting with the outline shape
because you can start to break down the image -
looking at how it all connects together.
And also by breaking down the image
and looking at the different shapes and the lines
that make up the thing that you're drawing,
it's less overwhelming than worrying about drawing
the whole thing at once.
Don't worry about getting things perfect when you're drawing.
There's not really, I don't think, a perfect way of drawing.
I think everyone draws a little bit differently and that's absolutely fine.
Everyone always makes mistakes or might draw a line
and think "oh actually I wish that was a different shape".
As you can see that's just happened to me there,
so I've just tried to redraw it but then thought
'no I'm going to just completely rub this out and start it again'
and that's absolutely fine just persevere, keep going.
I'm happy with that now, so we'll move on to the next bit.
Now to finish the outline shape
by drawing the head and the beak
and joining that up to the body that we've just drawn.
Now I'm starting my drawing by drawing over at the last
kind of line of the neck that I've just drawn,
just so I know that it's matching up and lining up
where the head connects to the neck properly.
Now don't feel like you have to
constantly draw just one continuous line,
as you can see just then, I kind of
do a few little smaller, sketchy lines by kind of
flicking my wrist as I was drawing.
That's kind that's what we call sketching
and it just helps to get the right shape,
you can take your time, you can draw a couple of lines rather than one
continuous line, if you're a bit hesitant about getting the shape right.
Again I've just realised here
that I've not really left enough room between
the head and beak of the bird
and the body of the bird,
because, if you remember from our image,
there's a small circle that needs to fit between the beak
and the body of our bird,
so I'm just going back.
And I'm just readjusting these lines now,
and again that's another reason why it's
always great to draw from observation,
to draw from an image or a book or, where
possible, from real life is always
a fantastic way and to practice your drawing.
I'm just changing the position of the lines on the head
and I'm happy with that, so I'm going to draw in
that circle shape between the beak and the body
and I'm going to draw the eye of my bird as well now.
Now I'm going to draw in,
I'm going to change the shape of the tail feathers,
as well as drawing in some of these
details on the inside of our bird's body.
Again just tracing back over the line to make sure
everything is connecting properly.
Now I'm just kind of altering the lines here a little bit,
changing the shape of some of these feathers,
making them a bit more curvy than pointy at the ends.
I'm kind of using my artistic flair and I encourage you to do the same,
really play around with some of these shapes.
Don't worry about it being perfect, put your stamp on it
and that's the point of drawing
if everyone drew the same and was always trying to
completely copy an image or a photograph
then it'd be quite boring.
It's good to put your own flair on
and stamp on your drawings by changing
the different shapes and having a play around.
Again I'm kind of working quite quickly on this bit
because I'm just kind of adjusting the shapes
to the way I want them to look
and having to play around.
Also in a minute we're going to draw over these pencil
lines with our felt tips.
So it doesn't need to be perfect, as you can see,
I've got quite a few different pencil lines going on here,
and we'll neaten that up when it comes to
drawing with our felt tip pens in a second.
I'm just going to do the last little details here
and then I'm quite happy to move on and start drawing in felt tip.
I've got my felt tip from earlier and
I'm now I'm gonna start drawing over these pencil lines.
For now I'm just tracing these lines and neatening up as I go.
So I'm sort of using my pencil lines now as a guide.
So in some places I'm completely tracing the angle and the shape of the lines.
In other places I'm kind of amending as I go.
So it's at this point that I'm starting to neaten things up
and really think about the different shapes and
how I want them to look as I'm drawing them.
I'm going to stop drawing there and come back when this is all done.
Pen lines all drawn in now, so I'm going to get my rubber
and I'm going to start to gently rub away
any of the pencil lines that you can still see.
Make sure you give the ink a few minutes
to dry so you don't get any smudges before you start rubbing out
and also don't press on too hard here - you just need to try and
carefully get rid of any of the pencil lines that we can still see,
so it neatens our drawing up.
Here's a quick video of me finishing
my Sankofa bird now.
Switching between the two different felt tip pens
so I can keep changing the thickness of the line.
So I can end up with a really strong image once i'm finished.
Thank you for watching the video
and I hope that helps you all with your
drawings of your Sankofa for birds, you can start to add maybe some
different colours to your image,
maybe using different materials, like collage materials,
and to get really crafty with these
images and really put your artistic stamp on them.
Enjoy your drawing!