Drawing with soft pastels

Some spend the winter in warmer countries, others stay with us. Of course, we are talking about birds whose colorful feathers we were inspired by for this time when creating with soft pastels by KOH-I-NOOR HARDTMUTH.

Look out the window, open the bird encyclopedia or just listen to your imagination and start drawing these cute creatures with us!

Prepare ideally black paper, so that the colored pastels stand out as much as possible. You will also need a set of soft pastels, we used the Landscape type set, soft pastel in pencils to draw details and fixative.

Be the first to plan the composition and create a quick sketch of the whole bird using a white pastel in pencil. Sketch lights and shadows.

Then prepare classic dusty pastels and start drawing feathers. Remember that the feathers are not monochromatic, so it's a good idea to change colors to make the result as realistic as possible.

You can mix dusty pastels with each other very well and even blur them. However, it is good to let the drawing stand out and not just create a uniform surface, which in the end does not look so plastic and natural.

For small details such as the beak, eye or feet, use the pastels in pencil again.

Fix the resulting image sufficiently with a fixative and you're done! Will you do it with us?