How to draw shorebirds: Step by Step

Shorebirds are great subjects to sketch. They will hang out and nap in plain sight, do not hide in vegetation and will return to the same postures again and again (feeding, resting, sleeping, etc.). Once you are familiar with the basic structure, you can adapt it to drawing any shorebird by modifying the beak shape and proportions. I hope that this step by step tutorial and video will help you master the basics of how to draw shorebirds. Let me know how your sketches are developing.

Click on each picture below to enlarge the image and captions.

To watch and listen to this process in my recent lecture on drawing shorebirds, Watch the video below starting at 0:10:40.