First I starting with a basic sketch of the bird and the perch he would be sitting on.
I used my camera to photograph the sketch so it didn't turn out quite as well as it would have if I had scanned it. But it's good enough to tell that I mainly sketched the basic outline of the bird with some messy detailing in the wings. I normally go over my lines with a prismacolor micron pen and it is this step where I clean up my line art and finish prepping for the coloring steps.
I've been practicing on rendering details through my markers and colored pencils instead of using the line art, this way the line are is just a basic outline. Now the drawing is ready for color. I start off by coloring in the background with pastels to keep it soft and lacking in great detail to keep the focus on the scarlet tanager. Once the pastels are laid down I started putting down the base colors of the bird, the branch he is sitting on, and a few more branches with leaves.
I noticed immediately after scanning that his head was pretty harsh on the eyes. The yellow, mixed with the orange was way too bright that not even messing with the levels in photoshop fixed it. I didn't want to put another layer of marker color over it, so I saved that troublesome spot for the colored pencils to fix.
After the marker was done, I ended up letting the drawing sit for a bit as I worked on other projects. Last night I finally came back to it and used my prismacolor pencils to render the details and add in darker shadows and brighter highlights. I even managed to darken up his head so that bright yellow wasn't so horrible anymore. I completed the picture by adding in some white ink into the feathers and branches.
I'm very proud of this piece, I think it's one of my best realistic type of pictures so far and I reasserted the fact that I really enjoy drawing birds.
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