Richard Merrill's profile

Drawing hawks for a new book

Drawing hawks for a new book
These are designed to be printed on cover stock to cut out, fold and fly. I began with a Rough-Legged hawk, Buteo lagopus. Feathers are as accurate as I could make them, thanks to the US Fish and Wildlife’s Feather Atlas. It's fascinating how the individual patterns on feathers create the overall look of the bird. Such beauty!

They're drawn in Adobe Illustrator on a Windows laptop.
These are feathers from the wing of a rough-legged hawk. Except for the small one second from left, they're in order from the tip of the wing toward the base.
I draw the feathers first and then assemble the bird using the feathers, modifying and adjusting them until they're right. It means each individual feather is pretty much unique. Because they're designed to fold and fly, they must be exactly symmetrical. I draw one wing and flip/copy it for the other wing. You'll notice this in the bird's head view at the shoulders, though the feathers on the head are not done this way.
The primary feathers make their own "fingers" when the wing is spread for flying. Other layers of feathers create the contours of the wing, with more layers at the front for the aerodynamic wing shape, and the trailing edges of the primaries and secondaries at the trailing edge of the wing.
The hawks are such wild-living birds, hunters and superb flyers. They're basically talons with wings, and the shapes and coloration of the feathers seem to reflect this elemental truth about them.
Drawing hawks for a new book
Published:

Drawing hawks for a new book

Drawing hawks and wild birds to fold and fly

Published: