You, Too, Can Draw a Parrot

I'm absolutely thrilled to be teaching art in co-op. I had the first and second graders do something that half of them thought they couldn't : draw a parrot. Using a great book, Drawing with Children, a dry-erase board, and black marker, I showed them step by step how to make a parrot.

You try! I'd love to see pictures! (I meant to take my camera to class today. We were all impressed with their creations.)

First, draw a dot for the eye. Draw a small circle around it. Draw two little squiggly lines under the eyes, one below the other. To the right of the eye, about a half inch away, draw a vertical line about as long as the distance from top of eye to bottom squiggly line.

With me so far? Good.

Decide how long you want the beak. I made mine about an inch long. Put tip of pencil an inch away from the straight line and draw a curved line up to meet the straigh vertical line. Draw a second curved line just like that, starting at the same place, just a smidge above it. This forms the top part of beak. To form the bottom part of beak, draw a curved line from midpoint of top part of beak to the straight line.

Head: Starting at top of straight line, draw a curved line up and around toward the left, and swing inward a bit, then out a smidge. To form throat, start at bottom of straight line , curve inward, then swing outward. You should have a good facsimile of a parrot head at this point. (Jimmy Buffett would be proud.)

Next, from the left of neck to the right, draw some scalloped line to make feathers.

Back: draw a curved line around, stopping at about the "eight o'clock" mark if your bird was a clock. Do same to the other side, stopping at about "five o'clock."

Wings. These overlap. When you overlap, draw what's in front first. (For live demo, cross one of your hands in front of the other, facing fingers toward floor. This will give you a visual of how the wings overlap.) Starting at bottom of the bird's back, draw a straight line up about 1/8", turn right, then extend line down and to right about 4 inches. Do another wing like that above it. Then another.

For second set of wings (the partly hidden ones) draw a rectangle above existing wings at the midback, touching the wings. Imagine this line continuing down, but hop over the lines and then draw the lines of wings below. Make them like you did other wings, only going the opposite direction.

Tail. In the open space between the crossed wings, put a scalloped line. This is your first set of tail feathers. Draw a second row. Don't make all feathers identical, mix it up a bit in width and length. Draw a third row and fourth, or as many as you'd like.

You're almost finished. Now draw little dashed lines for feathers on your bird, following the curved and straight lines of the bird.

At the end, draw him on a branch with palm leaves, or put him in a cage. Remember, if in a cage, those bars have to come over him in front. I like my birds in the wild, so they're in branches. Color brightly and you're done!

I would love to see you and your housemates try this and post your art. Go on, I made believers out of Bonnie and Gary today, self-proclaimed "non-artists. " I do believe they were going home to put theirs on the fridge!