Michelle shares sketching techniques and shows how to draw a starling.

One of the most familiar of birds, the once abundant starling, has suffered a significant population decline in recent years, and it is now red listed as a bird of conservation concern.

Male starlings will sing for much of the year, only stopping for a few weeks during the post-breeding season moult. They have a curious habit of singing at winter roosts, both on arrival in the evening and before departure in the morning. Not only are starlings great singers, they are also impressive mimics, able to imitate the calls or songs of other birds and, even, mechanical sounds.

Sketching Techniques

Stippling. Applying small dots to build up darker values in a drawing; the density of the dots determines the value produced. This is the most time consuming of all techniques.

Scumbling is a method of shading using tiny circular squiggles. It looks a bit like a steel-wire scourer.

Shading. Applying rounded or shortlines, from dark to light, to create an illusion of depth or three dimensions.

Blending (or smudging). Applying your finger or a blending tool to your drawing. It helps give your image volume and expressiveness.

Hatching (and cross-hatching). Lines drawn in the same direction. By drawing lines closer together, darker values are created; leaving space between lines results in lighter values. When lines are placed at an angle to one another, this is called cross-hatching.

How to draw a starling:

Step 1

Draw the outline with the pen, including the wings, eye and legs. The drawing doesn’t have to be a perfect rendition as we are focusing on techniques here.

Step 2

Using the medium Pitt pen, highlight the shadows, where you can see the darker lines on the sketch.

Step 3

With the fine Pitt pen and using the cross-hatch technique, work on the lighter shades first, filling in the whole head with criss-cross lines.

Once you have completed this, use the medium Pitt pen to work on the deeper shadow lines by drawing over the lighter work as you can see in the demonstration sketch.

Step 4

Work your way down towards the body with the same technique – cross hatch. Continue to work on the lighter shade first, with the fine Pitt pen. For the darker shadows, use the medium Pitt pen.

Step 5

When you have completed the body work, continue working on the feathers and wings, using lines with the pen.

Step 6

You can either use white gouache or a white chalk pencil to make little specks; these highlight the bird’s feathers. I used white gouache here.

If you're new to drawing, don't stop here! Explore our other beginner-friendly guides to learn all you need to progress and develop your drawing skills.

Starlings in Winter Glow, mixed media on black paper, (93x66cm)

For this I used Caran d'Ache watercolour pencils and crayon pastels for the birds. The branches and fruit in the background were drawn using Faber-Castell Pitt pens. I achieved the entire image by painting a background on 300gsm Fabriano watercolour paper using Golden black acrylic ink then cut out the complete image using a scalpel and pasted it onto the black background. The dark background gave the branches and fruit a silvery look.

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