Animal Drawing: Audubon Winter Cardinal

I am always looking for animal projects for our students to create, one of favorite artist to use is John James Audubon.We used John James Audubon work as our inspiration for Winter cardinal. John James Audubon (1785 - 1851) was a French-American ornithologist, naturalist, hunter, and painter. He painted, catalogued, and described the birds of North America in a manner far superior to what had gone before. His major work, a color-plate book entitled The Birds of North America (1827–1839), is considered one of the finest ornithological works ever completed. Audubon identified 25 new species and a number of new sub-species. Our lesson focuses on color and shape to create our cardinal.

Materials: We use 2h sketching pencil on heavyweight drawing paper for rough sketch and finish it with sharpie, Prismacolor watercolor pencils and pastel chalk.

Step #1: Draw light guidelines across the middle and down the center of the paper. Draw a wing and the cardinal head.
Step #2: Draw the beak as shown below.
Step #3: Draw the body and talons, then add the cardinal tail feathers.
Step #4: Draw a branch for the cardinal to perch on. Then add your own details. I used a "Y" tree in the background and add some holly to my tree branch.


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