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How to Draw a Robin with Watercolour Pencils
In short
A gentle first project for watercolour pencils, and a good one to build your confidence. You lay the robin down in dry colour, blend it with a damp brush along the feathers, then add a soft background. Seven pencils and one brush, and nothing here has to be perfect.
A lot of people buy a tin of watercolour pencils, try one tentative stroke, and then leave them in a drawer because the idea of adding water feels like the moment it could all go wrong. If that is you, this robin is exactly where to begin.
It is small, it is forgiving, and its whole purpose is to let you find out what these pencils do when they get wet, on something that does not matter if it is not museum-perfect.
So before we start, one promise: at a certain point this drawing will look worse before it looks better.
The first time you touch a damp brush to your careful pencil work, it will seem to go cloudy and uncertain. That is not you doing it wrong. That is simply what watercolour pencil does on its way to looking lovely, and a few minutes later it settles. Knowing that in advance takes most of the fear out of it.
The finished robin. Seven colours, one damp brush, and feathers blended in the direction they grow.
The mistake almost everyone makes first: too much water. A soaking brush floods the colour and lifts it back off the paper. You want the brush barely damp, not wet. Keep a piece of kitchen roll beside you and touch the brush to it after dipping. You can always add more water; you cannot easily take it away.
What you will need
Seven colours carry the whole picture, and you do not need a particular brand or an expensive set. This example used Caran d'Ache Supracolor Aquarell, but Derwent Inktense, Staedtler Karat, or whatever watercolour pencils you already own will all work.
- A reddish orange and a red, for the breast
- An ochre and a chestnut brown, for the back, wing and head
- Black, for the eye, beak and darkest accents
- Two greens, for the background
One round brush and a jar of clean water, and you are ready. If you fancy a different mood later, the colours are yours to change: the cooler version of this robin simply used browner greens behind it and colder browns in the upper feathers.
Free traceable outline: Rather not draw the robin freehand? Download Peter's outline (PDF), print it, and trace it onto your paper before you start.
Step by step
Working from your outline, start filling the robin in with dry pencil: orange on the breast, ochre and brown on the head and back, the dark of the eye and beak. Keep your pressure light. You are only placing the colours, so there is nothing to commit to yet and nothing to get wrong.
Stage 1: the first dry colour going down, with the rest of the bird still in outline.
Add more layers until the bird reads clearly. Here is the useful part to know: the water will only move the pigment that is already on the paper, so a little more dry colour now means a richer result after blending. If it looks a touch heavier than you expected, that is fine, the brush will soften it.
Stage 2: the dry colour built up across the whole bird, before any water touches it.
This is the moment. With that barely-damp brush, work from light to dark, drawing the colour into the shapes and pulling the darker tones into the lighter ones, always brushing in the direction the feathers grow. If a patch looks muddy, leave it, let it dry, and you can lift or recolour it afterwards. Following the feather direction is the single thing that turns flat colour into soft plumage, so let that guide every stroke.
Stage 3: the bird blended with a damp brush, the feathers softened in the direction they grow. Still no background.
Once the bird's first layers are blended and properly dry, scribble loose lines of your two greens behind it for grass and undergrowth. Resist the urge to be neat. A background that is a little rough and sketchy actually helps, because it keeps all the attention on the robin.
Stage 4: loose green scribbled in behind the bird for the grass and undergrowth.
Blend the greens with your damp brush, moving it the way grass grows, upward and a little fanned. Keep it soft and slightly out of focus. If it tries to creep into the bird, a clean damp brush will tidy the edge while it is still wet.
Stage 5: the background blended soft and out of focus, settling the robin in front of it.
Now stand back and look. If a colour is not strong enough, or a shade is not quite right, you simply add dry pencil over the blended, dry surface. This is your safety net: nothing is final until you decide it is, and this last dry pass is where you sharpen the feather markings and bring a glint to the eye.
The finished robin. Seven colours, one damp brush, and feathers blended in the direction they grow.
If it goes wrong
It rarely goes as wrong as it feels in the moment. Let everything dry fully, then look again with fresh eyes: most "ruined" patches can be lifted with a clean damp brush or simply covered with fresh dry colour. The worst that happens is you learn something for the next one, which is rather the point of a practice robin.
Carry on from here
Watercolour Pencils: the full guide
Everything else watercolour pencils can do, from washes to line and wash, once you have the robin under your belt.
The rest of the animal and bird tutorials, and the principles that carry across every furry or feathered subject.
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