Sketching a peregrine falcon, step-by-step

I really do like the peregrine falcon a lot, so I decided to do a bit of pencil sketching to see how well I could capture this handsome bird on paper.

It was intended to be a little bit of artistic exercise, because I haven't drawn very much in the past month, but it turned out to be a pretty daunting task. Since I was just working with a regular mechanical pencil and HB lead, my top concern was trying to decide how to portray the texture of the feathers. In the end, I left a lot of unshaded space, which I think looks alright.

I took a couple of progress pictures along the way, and I'll explain my thought process as I was drawing.

First of all, the image I used for reference was this one, which is not mine. I just grabbed it off of Google:

I started off by doing a very rough outline of the shape of the bird. I don't like to use simple shapes like ovals and whatnot, because I find it's too much work to have to go back and erase. I suspect I could achieve a higher level of realism if I were more careful about the proportions, but for now, this would do:

Then I started to draw in some of the features more carefully, noting where certain types of feathers started or ended:

At this point I started to add texture to the face and upper back. The feathers on the head are very small and fine, but as they proceed down the bird's back they become larger. I drew out the rough shape of the feathers, following the shape of the wing, so that I would have an easier time later deciding which parts to darken:

Shading the wing was taking a lot of effort. I started to work on the soft feathers covering the chest for a change of pace. These have an interesting pattern on them that becomes kind of like little u shapes towards the bird's feet. I also tried to add more definition to the feet and talons, and added a bit of texture to the tailfeathers:

Well, it turns out that drawing out the pattern on the chest feathers was also a lot of effort. This sketch was honestly a little bit intense for what I had intended to be just an exercise! But, I didn't want to leave it unfinished, so on I went.

I did the partially-tucked wing and the legs before going back to the main wing. Working on the smaller areas and finishing the patterns on them was satisfying, and helped me find the willpower to go back to the main portion of the wing. I shaded most of it in, because the falcon does have dark-coloured feathers on its wings, but left as much unshaded paper as possible in order to show the texture of the overlapping feathers:

At this point, all I had left to do was the abdomen and tailfeathers of the bird. The chest and abdomen were probably the hardest part of the entire process, to be honest, because I had to keep referencing the relative positions of all the markings. I didn't draw every single feather identically to the reference photo, but I tried to stay as close to the original image as possible, since that was the point of the exercise.

When it was all said and done, I did a last once-over of the whole sketch, adding a bit more shading here and there, and going over lines where I thought the definition was lacking. The final result:

When I finished penciling in and shading all the marked abdomen feathers, I have to admit, I was pretty satisfied. I usually have a hard time deciding when to stop working on a piece, because there are always more slight adjustments to be made, but I felt pretty good about this one.

My guess is that sketching from a reference photo is a more compartmentalized kind of art compared to the freely creative sort (that is, drawing from imagination) that I usually do. There's an endpoint already in sight, and all you have to do is take the necessary steps to get there. Plus, there's just something about the total completion of a task that makes all the effort seem worth it. I'm sure this doesn't just apply to art, but that feeling of satisfaction... is definitely one of the reasons why I love to draw so much.

~Mel.