This guide is designed to help you draw an African Grey Parrot by breaking down the process into 22 simple steps. We’ll start with a basic sketch and gradually add details, making it easy for you to follow along and recreate this beautiful bird. All you need to do is follow the steps one by one.

Appearance of the African Grey Parrot

The African Grey Parrot is known for its striking and elegant appearance. To capture its beauty, focus on these key features:

• Tail: Distinctive bright red tail feathers.
• Eyes: Pale yellow iris encircled by an eye ring.
• Beak: Strong, curved, and black.
• Size and Posture: Medium-sized with a poised and upright stance sitting on a branch.

Keep these features in mind as you work on your African Grey Parrot drawing.

Before you start drawing an African Grey Parrot, I recommend checking out my other guides on various bird drawings. These include sparrows, eagles, flamingos, and pelicans. Each bird has a unique shape and form, offering excellent practice for your drawing skills.

How This Guide is Structured

This guide, as mentioned, is broken down into 22 step-by-step images. The first two images focus on creating a basic sketch to maintain proportions and position the parrot’s body parts and details. It’s best to use light pencil strokes at this stage so they can be easily erased later.

• Red Color: Indicates what you need to draw in the current step.
• Black Color: Represents lines and details from previous steps.
• Grey Color: Shows the basic sketch lines from the first two steps, helping you see the underlying structure.

By following these colors, you can build your drawing layer by layer, ensuring all features of the parrot are proportionally accurate.

Step 1: Let’s begin by drawing two ovals. The first, smaller oval will serve as the base for the head. Then, draw a noticeably larger oval below and to the right for the body. Use the image for this step as a reference to get the right size and angle for these ovals.

Before You Get Started

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Step 2: Draw simple lines to outline the shapes of the wings and tail. Use basic lines to indicate the position of the parrot’s legs. Form the shape of the beak with curved lines as shown. Additionally, add a small circle inside the head oval to mark where the eye will be.

Step 3: Based on the basic sketch, begin drawing the upper part of the head where the top of the beak intersects the head oval. Use several slightly curved lines to depict the back of the head, representing the feather layers visible in this area.

Step 4: Draw the upper part of the beak, carefully shaping it to match the natural curve and contours of the African Grey Parrot’s beak.

Step 5: Draw the lower part of the beak, and use a wavy curved line to separate the beak from the head. This will help define the complete shape of the beak.

Step 6: Draw a small black oval slightly to the right of the line separating the beak from the head to represent the nostril. Then, draw a circle where we marked the eye’s position earlier.

Step 7: Now, let’s draw the eye of our African Grey Parrot. Inside the circle we created earlier, draw a slightly smaller circle and fill it in with black, leaving a small uncolored area at the top for a highlight.

Step 8: Draw the front part of the body extending downward from the head oval. Use several curved lines along the way to depict the layers of feathers, adding texture to this area.

Step 9: Starting from the back of the head area we drew in Step 3, begin drawing the rear part of the wing. The wing is visually divided into two sections, and here we outline the upper section and the back portion of the wing.

Step 10: Finish outlining the upper part of the wing and visually divide it into several feathers, as shown in the image.

Step 11: Complete the outline of the wing by drawing the second part, which is located below the first section.

Step 12: Draw the tip of the second wing that’s visible from our perspective. Then, outline the parrot’s tail, adding several lines to indicate individual feathers.

Step 13: Draw the part of the body between the leg and the tail, and start drawing the leg that’s closer to us. Focus on the broader part covered with feathers.

Step 14: Finish drawing the leg closest to us, detailing the visible toes from our perspective. Then, add a line indicating the branch on which the parrot is perched.

Step 15: Now, draw the second leg, partially hidden behind the one closer to us.

Step 16: Add the outline of the branch the parrot is perched on using simple lines to show its position.

Step 17: Start adding small details to give more style and realism to our drawing. Add a line on the upper beak for volume, a circle around the eye, and small lines for feather texture. Add many fine lines on the cheek area, as shown in the reference

Step 18: In the neck area, draw several curved lines to represent the feathered texture, adding layers as we did earlier with the parrot’s body.

Step 19: Add feather texture to the parrot’s head using small, curved lines. These lines are finer and more delicate, as shown in the step image.

Step 20: In this stage of drawing our African Grey Parrot, add the finishing details. Use curved lines to show the feather texture on the upper wing and simple lines for the longer feathers on the tail and the lower part of the wing.

Step 21: At this point, we are finishing up the sketch of our parrot. One thing I noticed is that I didn’t separate the feathered part of the legs from the lower section. You might want to add that separation now if you plan to finalize the sketch. The main thing now is to carefully erase the basic sketch lines and possibly adjust any details that might not look right in this final stage.

Step 22: This image serves as a reference for coloring, shading, and adding highlights to your drawing. It’s a color reference for those who wish to add color to their artwork.

Bravo on Completing the Steps!

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