How to Draw a Pelican

This lesson will teach you how to draw a pelican, a unique bird that has a memorable appearance.

Although we have shown you how to draw birds before, the process for drawing a pelican differs from that of drawing other birds.

It is important to remember that pelicans can be very different before you start the lesson. They can have different colors and details. You can draw any pelican by following the steps in this lesson.

This drawing tutorial will teach you how to draw a pelican.

Step 1 – Draw the guidelines

Begin by drawing the outline of the head. In the first step, the head looks like an oval, and the torso is like a large one. These ovals will be used as guides for the drawing of the pelican in subsequent steps.

Step 2: Draw the neck

Draw the neck using two long lines. Connect the head and the torso of your pelican. The neck should be slightly longer towards the torso.

Step 3 – Draw your tail

Next, draw the tail of the pelican with a few lines from the back of your torso. You can also check the proportionality by looking through a mirror.

Step 4 – Draw your beak

Draw a long beak by going back to the head of the pelican. The beak’s upper portion should be straight, while the lower portion should curve slightly at the junction between the neck and head.

Step 5: Draw the details of the beak

With a straight line, separate the head and neck of the pelican. Next, use a long line to separate the beak’s top from the bottom of the pelican.

Step 6 – Draw your Eyes

Let’s now draw the eye for the pelican. The oval shape is used to draw the outline of the eye. Next, draw a small circular pupil within the eye’s outline.

Step 7 – Draw the Wing

To depict the wing, draw a long, smooth line. Draw feathers at the ends to make the wings look natural.

Step 8 – Draw your legs

Draw the feet of your pelican. Your feet should look like a duck’s. You can adjust the proportions of your pelican drawing by moving away from it slightly.

Step 9 – Draw your feathers

Let’s now get to the texture. Draw the feathers on your wing using a lot of U-shaped lines. The texture of feathers can be drawn on the body of other pelicans.

Step 10 – Delete the Guidelines

All auxiliary guidelines should be removed from your pelican drawing to make it more beautiful and complete. To make your drawing more expressive, you can darken the lines.

Step 11 – Color your Pelican Drawing

We used light gray and dark grey for the feathers, dark brown for the legs, and orange for the eyes.

You can create a beautiful background for your pelican. This will make the artwork appear more vibrant and alive. Another option is to add some animals to the background. To learn more about drawing animals, visit our Animals section.