How to Draw a Puffin
Step 1
Start by drawing the eye and head detail of your Puffin in pencil. Draw lightly at first so that you can erase easily if you want to change anything.
Step 2
Next add the outline of the head and beak.
Step 3
Now we can add the detail of the beak.
After you finish your Puffin drawing why not color it in like this!
Click on the Puffin above to find out how I created these colorful images from my Puffin drawing.
I used watercolor paints and masking fluid, both available from BLICK art supplies.
Click below for bigger Puffins
Things You Might Not Know About Puffins
Atlantic puffins very interesting birds with a beautiful colored beak. They nest in colonies in Burrows on steep grassy slopes by coastal Cliffs. They are commonly seen close to their colonies, however, the will Winter further out to sea than other Auks. In terms of identification, in summer the adults are parrot-like with huge colorful bills.
At close range they readily identifiable, the combination of the bill and the dark unbroken band of white across their chests. The puffin floats high in the water, and it appears to be 60% the size of a Guillemot. At distance in flight, they can be told apart by the shorter thicker body and the large rounded head which is pale in summer.
They have a rather dark underwing although some grayish-white is visible at close range. Another way to tell them apart from the Guillemot is the lack of a white trailing edge to the arm, and the rump lacks white sides. Something to bear in mind for your Puffin drawing, they have a short stern, giving the impression of wings placed far back on the body, and the orange feet are often surprisingly obvious.
The adults in winter have their bills smaller, and the eye surround is dark greyish. The juvenile in the first winter resembles an adult winter puffin, but the beak is much smaller and darker and can be confused with the little auk.
More Interesting Puffin Facts
They usually live alone or in pairs there can be thousands of pairs in a colony. Another interesting thing about Puffins is that they have an amazing ability to hold fish in their beak, being able to hold up to 10 fish in their beaks at once. The average height of a puffin is about 12 inches tall and they have an oily coating on their feathers to help them stay dry.
Naturally, because they’re in the water a lot, and this helps keep them dry and warm. They can dive as deeply as 18O ft under the water. They don’t lay very many eggs, only one per year. However, both the female and male keep the eggs warm and after about 40 days the eggs hatch, and another little “Sea Parrot” is born! The voice is a deep grunting sound mostly uttered from the inside the burrow because the puffins live in burrows in the cliffs.
Another name for a puffin is a sea parrot because he looks like a cross between a parrot and a penguin. Keep that in mind when you do your next Puffin Drawing!
Ideas and Techniques in graphite pencil for drawing a .........
Graphite pencils are rated according to their approximate hardness. The harder the pencil, the lighter the line it makes on the page. The softest pencil will make a fairly dark line, and having a wide variety of hardness will provide depth and also a more dramatic atmosphere to your Puffin drawing.
To be more specific, pencils are graded for hardness making use of the HB scale. A normal set of 5 pencils appropriate for animal drawing in general, would normally range from 8B, the softest, to HB, the hardest. You can buy harder pencils than HB, however, these are more suited to technical drawing. When you try to get away with making use of just a single HB pencil, you will certainly discover yourself pushing down too hard in a futile attempt to obtain an adequately dark tone. Changing to a softer pencil is a far better remedy, particularly as a set of 5 pencils is not very expensive. You can see the difference it can create in the picture further down.
Ideas and Techniques in colored pencil for drawing a ............
INCORPORATING VARIOUS TOOLS FOR A DISTINCT RESULT WITH YOUR ANIMAL DRAWINGS
You can integrate colored pencil with other mediums such as watercolor or pastel. You might, for example, rough in the basic forms and also tones in either watercolor or pastel, and finally round off your drawing by drawing in the more finely detailed parts with your colored pencils.
As usual you should explore many different strategies to find your very own unique style. Just by trying out all the various techniques might you find what ends up the best for you personally.
It is essential to have an idea already picked out in your head, for instance, some method you believe your Puffin bird might be best portrayed to highlight the attributes distinct to the animal. If you do not have a clear idea as to what you’re attempting to achieve with your drawing, it can be hard to recognize which chosen selection of colored pencils as well as which kind of board or paper support matches your drawing best.
To express it an additional way, any type of plan, also one which turns out not to have actually been useful, is than no plan whatsoever, so start with a definite concept for your drawing. That does not suggest you have to be hard on yourself if it does not appear specifically the way you desired. That’s a creative luxury that even a specialist artist hardly ever accomplishes, yet we can all have a lot of enjoyment attempting it anyway!
Ideas and Techniques in Watercolor for Drawing a Bird
Watercolor Paints
By no means do you have to get “Artist’s quality” paint, to begin with. It was four or five years into my professional career as an artist when I switched from student quality watercolor to Artist’s quality. I would, however, strongly recommend that you get good grade “student quality” watercolor paint when you draw your Puffin using Watercolor.
Personally, I love using “Cotman” watercolor paint from Winsor and Newton in England. They can almost be used straight from the tube, as they are ready to use and already damp. As a matter of fact, it was Winsor and Newton who originated this great innovation of moist watercolor paint, innovating the idea in London England in 1835, soon after Queen Victoria ascended the throne. Winsor and Newton, this Old English purveyor of Artist’s materials got it’s first Royal Warrant 7 years later on. I guess the Queen must have liked their Watercolor paint!
