Every bird illustration here starts the same cheerful way: a flat cream background, a bold little bird, and a berry branch dusted with snow. These 31 ideas work through the whole cast of European winter garden birds, waxwings, bullfinches, robins, tits and thrushes, each one caught mid-moment rather than just sitting still.
You will find the familiar robin on a gate post alongside quieter subjects like a goldcrest tucked into frosted pine needles or a jay crossing a snowy lawn with an acorn. Pick whichever bird catches your eye first, keep your palette small, and let the matte gouache shapes do the work.
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Start the whole series with a pair of waxwings passing a rowan berry beak to beak, a lovely warm-up because the two birds share one shape language. Block in two rounded teardrop bodies in a soft fawn gouache, overlapping slightly so the composition reads as one unit rather than two separate birds. Keep the crests as simple pointed triangles and save the black mask, yellow tail tip and red wax-like wing marks for last, painted wet-on-dry with a small round brush.
The mistake to watch for is making both birds identical. Tilt one head up and one head down toward the berry so the eye follows the exchange, and vary the wing angle slightly between them. If you do not have true rowan red, any warm berry red works, just keep it a flat, clean shape rather than a blended dot.
Measure before you paint: hold your brush up to the reference and compare the head size to the body length, waxwings have a surprisingly large head on a short body, and getting that ratio right is what makes the silhouette recognisable instantly.
Finish with a single cream highlight dot on each eye using a white gel pen, it brings the whole pair to life in seconds.
Palette: Raw Sienna,Berry Red,Lamp Black,Cream
Move from two birds to one with a bullfinch, instantly recognisable by its rosy chest, perched on a snowy apple branch. Lay the body down first as two simple ovals, a rounder one for the chest and a smaller one for the head, then add the black cap and short stubby beak. Paint the rosy chest as one flat, confident shape in a dusty pink-red rather than shading it gradually, that flatness is what gives this style its crisp print look.
Work the branch next, a single curving diagonal line in chocolate brown, then lift clean white gouache or leave the cream paper bare for the snow sitting along its top edge. The place this goes wrong is a chest colour that drifts into orange, so mix your red with a touch of white and grey rather than yellow to keep it rosy rather than warm.
If you are short on pink gouache, mix berry red with a little white and a whisper of blue-grey, it gets you there without a dedicated rose tube.
Add one or two snow-laden apples in soft red on the branch to balance the composition today.
Palette: Dusty Rose,Lamp Black,Chocolate Brown,Cream
Eye level decides everything here, so paint the blue tit hanging upside down from a frosted rosehip as if you are looking slightly up at it, which flattens the belly and lets the blue cap read clearly against the sky. Start with the body as a small round shape, head slightly smaller again, and keep the feet gripping the stem with simple curved claw lines rather than fussy detail.
Build colour in flat patches: lemon yellow belly first, then the cap and wing in a clean cerulean blue, letting the white cheek patch stay as bare cream paper so it stays crisp rather than muddy. The rosehip itself is one small red oval with a dusting of white gouache flicked lightly over the top for frost.
Light source matters on a hanging bird like this: decide the light comes from one side and keep the shadow edge of the body consistently on the other side, it is what makes the upside-down pose feel believable rather than flat and pasted on.
No cerulean on hand, a mix of ultramarine and a touch of white gets a similar clean sky blue.
Palette: Cerulean Blue,Lemon Yellow,Berry Red,Cream
Bring in a garden tool with the robin perched on a garden fork standing in a snowy vegetable patch, a nice change of prop after three branch-based birds. Paint the fork first since the bird sits on top of it, a simple vertical handle and three or four curved tines pushed into a mound of snow, all in flat chocolate brown against white.
The robin itself is the easiest bird in this whole list to get right: round body, round head, no visible neck, and that orange-red bib painted as one flat bib shape rather than a gradient. Keep the legs thin and dark, just two short lines, and let the bird’s weight sit slightly forward over the fork handle so the pose feels balanced rather than stuck on.
If your fork handle looks too thin and wobbly, thicken it slightly and add a small rounded knob at the top, garden tools read better with a bit of weight to them.
For a ten minute version, skip the vegetable patch rows entirely and paint just the fork and a mound of snow behind the robin; given forty minutes, add a few rows of frosted soil and a cabbage leaf or two poking through for a fuller little scene.
Palette: Robin Orange,Lamp Black,Chocolate Brown,Cream
Look at real garden forks for the tine spacing, evenly spaced tines read as a tool instantly, uneven ones read as scribbles.
Scale up from the earlier pair to a row of waxwings feasting on red berries in a snowy tree, a good test of repeating a shape with small variations. Sketch three or four waxwing silhouettes along a single branch line in pencil first, varying each head angle, some looking at a berry, one looking out, so the row does not feel copy-pasted.
Paint all the bodies in one sitting in the same fawn base colour before adding any markings, this keeps the colour consistent across the row rather than drifting warmer or cooler bird to bird. Then go back and add the black masks, yellow tail bands and red berries one bird at a time.
The place a row like this falls apart is spacing, if the birds crowd together or line up too evenly, it reads as a pattern rather than a flock. Stagger the heights slightly along the branch and leave uneven gaps between birds.
If your paper is narrow, three birds reads just as well as four, do not force a fourth bird in if the composition feels tight.
Palette: Raw Sienna,Berry Red,Lemon Yellow,Cream
Scale back right down for the goldcrest hiding among frosted pine needles, Europe’s smallest bird and a good chance to practice restraint rather than detail. Paint the pine needles first as clusters of thin green strokes radiating from short brown twigs, leaving gaps of cream paper between clusters so the composition stays airy rather than solid green.
The goldcrest itself is tiny on the page, so simplify hard: an olive-green oval body, a pale belly, and that signature gold-orange stripe on the crown painted as one small confident dash. Do not attempt individual feathers at this scale, flat shapes read far better than fiddly detail on a bird this small.
One hands-on trick helps the pine needles feel frosted rather than just green: once the green strokes are dry, dip an old toothbrush in white gouache thinned with water and flick a light spatter of frost across the needle clusters.
No toothbrush handy, a dry stiff brush tapped against your finger over the painting gives a similar scattered effect.
You Will Need
- toothbrush for splatter
Palette: Olive Green,Gold Orange,Chocolate Brown,Cream
Move back to a familiar garden visitor with the great tit pecking at a hanging seed ball in the snow, a fun shape study because the round seed ball and the bird’s round body echo each other nicely. Paint the seed ball first as a simple circle in a warm tan colour with a short string looping up out of frame, then build the bird gripping its edge with two small claw shapes.
The great tit’s black head stripe running down the yellow chest is the detail that makes this bird instantly readable, so paint the yellow chest as one flat shape first, then add the black stripe on top once it is fully dry so the edges stay crisp rather than bleeding.
Compare sizes before committing: the seed ball should be roughly the same width as the bird’s body, if it ends up much bigger it starts to dominate the page and the bird gets lost beside it.
Swap a plain bird table backdrop for a hanging branch if you want the seed ball to feel more suspended in open air today.
Palette: Lemon Yellow,Lamp Black,Tan,Cream
Bring a bit of speckle into the mix with a fieldfare eating a fallen apple on the snowy grass, a larger thrush with a lovely grey head and speckled chest. Block the body in three flat tones, grey head and rump, warm chestnut back, and a pale speckled chest, before adding any of the actual speckles so the base colours stay clean.
For the speckles themselves, load a fine round brush lightly and dab small irregular marks rather than dots in a perfect row, real feather speckling is uneven and that irregularity is what sells it. Keep the fallen apple simple, one red-gold oval with a small bite or peck mark and a short brown stalk, sitting directly on a patch of snow-dusted grass.
If the speckles start looking too uniform, vary their size as you go, a few larger marks near the throat and smaller ones lower down reads far more convincingly than evenly spaced dots.
Use a near-dry brush for the speckling, a fully loaded wet brush tends to bleed the marks together on gouache.
Palette: Grey,Chestnut Brown,Cream,Berry Red
Return to the bullfinch, this time as two bullfinches on a snow-laden hawthorn, and use the pair to practice composing around a heavier snow load. Paint the hawthorn branches first as a forked network of thin brown lines, then lay thick, slightly lumpy white gouache along the top of every branch before either bird goes in, snow this heavy needs real weight on the page.
Position one bullfinch lower and facing left, the other higher and facing right, so the eye travels a loop around the branch rather than reading the pair as a flat mirror image. Build each bird with the same flat rosy chest and black cap as before, letting the white snow shapes overlap slightly onto the lower edges of both bodies.
The common slip here is painting snow that looks like a thin outline rather than a soft pile, so thicken your white gouache with less water than usual and apply it in one confident stroke rather than a thin wash.
A few small red hawthorn berries tucked among the snow finish the branch nicely today.
Palette: Dusty Rose,Lamp Black,Chocolate Brown,Berry Red
Give the robin a different stage with the robin singing on a snowy terracotta pot, head tipped back and beak slightly open. That open beak is the whole character of this piece, so sketch it first in pencil to get the angle right before any paint goes down, a beak tipped too far back reads as alarmed rather than singing.
Paint the terracotta pot as a simple trapezoid in warm orange-brown, slightly darker at the rim, with a cap of thick white snow along the top edge. The robin sits just behind that rim, puffed chest forward, orange bib painted flat and the throat left very slightly paler where the song would be coming from.
If the pose feels stiff, angle the tail down and slightly out rather than straight, a singing bird braces itself and that small tail lift adds real energy to an otherwise simple silhouette.
No terracotta pot to reference, any plain plant pot shape works, the warm orange-brown colour is what reads as terracotta regardless of the exact form.
Palette: Robin Orange,Terracotta,Lamp Black,Cream
Add a bit of architecture with the blue tit peeking out of a frosty nest box, a good subject for practicing a dark interior against a pale exterior. Paint the nest box first as a simple wooden box shape with a pitched roof, snow dusted along the top edge, then cut a round entrance hole and fill it with flat near-black, that dark hole is what makes the peeking bird feel tucked inside rather than just standing in front of it.
Build the blue tit’s head and shoulders emerging from that hole, keeping the body mostly hidden so only the blue cap, white cheek and a hint of yellow chest show against the black interior. The contrast between that deep shadow and the bright little face is the whole charm of the piece.
Where this goes wrong is making the hole too large, if you can see the bird’s full body it stops looking like it is peeking out and starts looking like it is standing on a ledge, so keep the opening tight around the head and shoulders.
A short icicle or two off the roof edge adds a nice frosty finish.
Palette: Cerulean Blue,Chocolate Brown,Lamp Black,Cream
Group three long-tailed tits huddled together on a birch twig, a charming subject once you treat the trio as one fluffy mass rather than three separate birds. Paint them overlapping tightly, round fluffy pink-and-white bodies with their long narrow tails fanning out in different directions so the tails do the work of separating each bird visually.
Keep the heads small and round with a simple black eye stripe, and paint the pale pink flush on the belly as soft flat patches rather than blended gradients to match the rest of this style. The birch twig itself is one or two pale lines with small dark horizontal marks for the bark texture, kept thin so it does not compete with the fluffy trio above it.
Varying the composition next time is easy here: try them lined up along a horizontal twig instead of huddled in a clump, or swap the birch for a snow-dusted wire fence for a more urban feel.
If pink gouache runs thin, a touch of white mixed into your berry red stretches it a long way across three small birds.
Palette: Pale Pink,Lamp Black,Chocolate Brown,Cream
Zoom right in this time for a single waxwing with a cranberry red berry in its beak, letting the bird fill nearly the whole frame as a close portrait. Start with the head as the largest shape on the page, crest first, then the sleek black mask running through the eye, and only then the beak holding one small bright red cranberry.
At this close range the red wax-like tips on the wing become a real feature rather than a tiny detail, so paint them as small deliberate red dashes along the folded wing edge, evenly spaced but not perfectly identical. The body behind the head can stay simpler and slightly softer in tone since the face is doing all the storytelling here.
Working this close up, a forty minute version lets you add the fine yellow tail band and a touch of grey shading under the chin, where a ten minute version can stop right after the mask and berry and still feel complete.
Finish with one bright cream catchlight dot in the eye, it is what makes a close portrait like this feel alive rather than flat.
Palette: Raw Sienna,Berry Red,Lamp Black,Cream
Give the bullfinch a new perch with a bullfinch eating seeds from a snowy sunflower head, the dried flower head adding a nice textured shape against the smooth bird. Paint the sunflower head first as a large dark brown disc with a ring of dried, slightly curled petals around the edge, then stipple small dark seed marks across the disc with the tip of your brush.
The bullfinch perches on the rim or leans in from one side, body painted flat as before, beak angled down toward the seeds it is working at. Snow sits along the top curve of the flower head and along any petal tips that face upward, left as bare cream or a thin white wash.
If your seed stippling starts looking too even, break the pattern deliberately, leave small gaps where seeds have already been eaten, it tells the story of the bird’s work without any extra detail needed.
A dried sunflower head photo makes a far better reference than a fresh flower, the dried, slightly collapsed shape is what reads correctly here.
Palette: Chocolate Brown,Dusty Rose,Lamp Black,Cream
Change the mood with a dunnock hopping under a snowy hedge, a quieter, more modestly coloured bird that rewards careful observation of eye level. Paint this one from a low viewpoint looking slightly up into the hedge, which means the underside of the branches and the hedge’s dark shadowed interior take up more of the frame than the open sky above.
Keep the dunnock itself understated, soft grey head and throat, streaky brown back, built from flat shapes just like every other bird here but in a narrower, quieter colour range. The hedge behind it is a loose mass of dark green and brown twig shapes with heavy white snow sitting along the outer edges where it catches the light from above.
Because the dunnock blends so easily into its background, give it one small bright accent, a touch of orange-brown on the flank, so the eye still finds the bird first.
If grey-brown feels flat to mix, add a whisper of blue to your grey rather than more black, it keeps the bird looking fresh rather than muddy.
Palette: Soft Grey,Moss Green,Chocolate Brown,Cream
Follow the thrush family further with a redwing tugging at ivy berries on an old stone wall, a good chance to contrast rough stone texture against smooth feathers. Paint the stone wall first as a grid of uneven rectangular blocks in soft grey, varying the tone block to block so it does not read as a flat tiled pattern, then let dark green ivy leaves and small black-green berries trail across several blocks.
The redwing’s defining mark is the warm rust-red flank patch and pale eye stripe, so get those two marks confident and clear before worrying about the rest of the speckled chest, they are what separates this bird from a plain thrush at a glance. Paint the beak gripping one berry mid-tug, head angled slightly back for a sense of effort.
Dry brush work helps the stone wall feel rough rather than smooth: once the base grey blocks are dry, drag a nearly dry brush loaded with a slightly darker grey lightly across the surface for texture.
Swap ivy for climbing rose hips if ivy berries feel too dark and samey against stone.
Palette: Grey,Rust Red,Moss Green,Cream
Keep the garden feeder theme going with a coal tit grabbing a seed from a frosty bird table, the smallest of the tit family and easy to mistake for a blue tit if the markings are not clear. Paint the distinctive white patch on the back of the coal tit’s black head first, it is the single mark that makes this bird read correctly, then build the rest of the plain olive-grey body around it.
The bird table itself is a simple flat wooden platform, snow piled along its back edge, with a scatter of loose seeds painted as small irregular tan dots across the surface. Position the coal tit mid-grab, one foot lifted slightly, beak closing on a single seed, rather than simply standing still.
If the white head patch ends up too large, it starts to look like a different bird entirely, so keep it as a narrow crescent at the back of the head rather than a full white cap.
A scatter of sunflower seed shells painted below the table adds a nice sense of activity without any extra birds needed.
Palette: Lamp Black,Olive Grey,Tan,Cream
Bring in colour with a jay carrying an acorn across a snowy lawn, a larger, boldly patterned bird that makes a nice change of pace after several small tits and finches. Paint the body’s soft pinkish-brown base first, then add the jay’s signature marks on top once dry: the black moustache stripe, the white rump, and that small but vivid patch of blue-and-black barred feathers on the wing.
Give the jay a clear walking pose, body low and slightly forward, head down toward the acorn held in its beak, legs spread in a mid-stride stance rather than a static perch. The snowy lawn beneath is simple, a flat white-cream ground with a few short blue-grey shadow strokes to suggest the texture of trodden snow.
The blue wing patch is the detail everyone notices first, so paint it as a small tight block of alternating blue and black bars rather than a solid wash, that barring is what makes it unmistakably a jay.
No true jay blue in your set, mix cerulean with a touch of violet for that slightly electric tone.
Palette: Pinkish Brown,Cerulean Blue,Lamp Black,Cream
Return to the robin once more, now perched jauntily on the handle of a snow-dusted watering can, a lovely excuse to paint a curved metal object. Build the watering can first as a rounded body, narrow spout and a looping handle, all in a soft galvanised grey with a thin white edge of snow along the top rim and spout.
Perch the robin on the curved handle itself rather than the can’s body, feet gripping the loop, which gives the whole piece a more playful balance than a bird simply standing on a flat surface. Keep the robin’s proportions matched to earlier robins in this list, round body, orange bib, thin dark legs, for consistency across your set.
Metal surfaces catch light differently to wood or terracotta, so add one or two streaks of pale cream or white gouache along the can’s curved edge to suggest a cold metallic sheen rather than leaving it a flat grey block.
If grey feels too cool against the warm robin, mix in a touch of your chocolate brown for a slightly galvanised, weathered tone.
Palette: Robin Orange,Galvanised Grey,Lamp Black,Cream
Give the blue tit a simpler setting with a blue tit perched on a frosted lilac branch, bare of leaves and berries so the bird itself becomes the whole focus. Paint the branch first as one or two gently curving lines in grey-brown, with small frost crystals suggested by short white flicks rather than a heavy snow load, lilac branches are slender and should stay that way.
Build the tit sitting upright and alert, feet gripping the branch firmly, using the same flat blue cap, white cheek and yellow chest shapes established in earlier ideas so your whole series reads as one consistent flock of paintings.
With so little else on the page, this is a good one to vary next time: try the same bird from behind with just the back of the head and tail showing, or perched lower down looking straight out at the viewer instead of in profile.
Keep the background completely plain cream here, the simplicity of the branch is the whole point of this particular piece.
Palette: Cerulean Blue,Lemon Yellow,Grey Brown,Cream
Scale up to a small scene with a flock of waxwings landing on a snowy rowan tree in a city street, bringing in a hint of place alongside the birds themselves. Paint the rowan tree first as a simple rounded silhouette of bare branches dotted with red berries, then sketch three or four waxwings in different landing poses, wings still slightly spread on one or two, feet just touching down on others.
Behind the tree, suggest the city with the simplest possible shapes, a flat row of building fronts in muted chocolate brown and grey, a lamppost, nothing more detailed than that, so the birds and berries stay the clear focus of the page.
The trick with a flock mid-landing is staggering the wing positions, a few birds with wings tucked and one or two with wings still open reads instantly as movement rather than a static row of identical shapes.
If the city background feels like too much today, leave it as a plain cream strip low on the page and let the rowan tree carry the whole scene.
Palette: Raw Sienna,Berry Red,Chocolate Brown,Cream
Look at real waxwing flock photos for wing positions mid landing, a mix of open and closed wings across the group sells the movement far better than identical poses.
Bring back the bullfinch for a bullfinch sitting on the rim of a frozen birdbath, a nice study in painting ice as a distinct surface from snow. Paint the birdbath’s stone bowl first, a wide shallow dish shape on a short pedestal, then fill the bowl’s surface with a flat pale blue-grey rather than white, that cooler tone is what reads as ice rather than snow.
Add a few thin cracked lines across the ice surface with a fine brush once the base colour is dry, keeping them sparse, two or three lines is plenty to suggest a frozen surface without turning it into a spider web. The bullfinch perches on the rim above, same flat rosy chest and black cap as your earlier bullfinches, feet gripping the stone edge.
If the ice colour ends up too close to your sky or snow tones elsewhere in the painting, push it slightly more blue or slightly more grey so it reads as its own distinct surface rather than blending into everything else.
A thin white highlight stroke along the ice’s front edge with a gel pen finishes the frozen look nicely.
You Will Need
- white gel pen
Palette: Dusty Rose,Icy Blue,Stone Grey,Cream
Change surfaces again with a song thrush on a moss green garden bench in the snow, letting the bench’s colour become a real feature of the composition rather than a neutral prop. Paint the bench first as simple flat wooden slats in that moss green, with a thick ridge of white snow sitting along the top of each slat and a line of darker green shadow where the slats meet.
The song thrush itself follows the same build as the fieldfare and redwing earlier, warm brown back, pale speckled chest, speckles dabbed on last and kept irregular in size and spacing. Perch it standing on the bench’s armrest or seat edge, body angled slightly toward the viewer.
Because moss green and cream sit so comfortably together, this is a good one to push slightly bolder than usual, let the green be a genuinely saturated colour rather than a muted background tone, it keeps the whole piece feeling fresh rather than washed out.
No moss green premixed, mix sap green with a touch of raw umber for that slightly dusty, aged tone.
Palette: Moss Green,Chestnut Brown,Cream,Lamp Black
Climb into the pine forest with a crested tit on a snowy Scots pine, a bird defined almost entirely by its spiky black-and-white crest. Paint the crest first since it drives the whole character of the piece, a row of short pointed triangles in black and white rather than one solid shape, then build the rest of the plain brown-grey body around it, keeping the body deliberately understated so the crest stays the star.
The Scots pine branch beneath it needs distinctly longer, thinner needles than the earlier goldcrest’s pine, painted in loose clusters of two or three needles rather than dense clumps, with snow sitting in small soft piles where needle clusters meet the branch.
If the crest ends up looking too smooth or rounded, sharpen every point with a fine brush once the base shape is dry, those sharp triangular points are what separate a crested tit from every other tit in this list.
Keep the whole palette here more muted than your brighter birds, this one is about shape and texture rather than bold colour.
Palette: Lamp Black,Warm Grey,Moss Green,Cream
Pair up two greenfinches on a snowy sunflower feeder, a chance to paint a cylindrical feeder shape alongside two solidly built, olive-green birds. Paint the feeder first as a simple vertical tube with a mesh pattern suggested by light cross-hatching rather than drawing every individual gap, topped with a small peaked roof wearing a cap of snow.
Build both greenfinches in the same flat olive-green and yellow-flash colouring, one perched on the feeder’s base ring and one clinging to its side mid-flight-landing, wings slightly open for variety between the pair. Keep the stout finch beak, thicker and more triangular than a tit’s or robin’s beak, clear and well shaped since it is a key identifying feature.
The mesh pattern is the part most likely to overwhelm the piece if overworked, so keep it as a light, loose suggestion in a few rows rather than a dense grid covering the whole feeder.
If olive green feels muddy straight from the tube, lighten it with a touch of lemon yellow rather than white to keep it fresh.
Palette: Olive Green,Lemon Yellow,Chocolate Brown,Cream
Return once more to the blue tit, this time as a pair of blue tits sharing a coconut shell feeder, a nice chance to paint a rounder, more textured hanging prop than the seed ball from earlier. Paint the coconut shell first as a half-sphere shape in a warm fibrous brown, adding short irregular texture lines across its surface to suggest the husk, with a thin rope or string looping up out of the top of the frame.
Position the two blue tits on opposite sides of the shell’s rim, both leaning in toward the opening, heads close but not overlapping, so the composition stays balanced left to right. Build each bird with the familiar flat blue cap and yellow chest, varying only the wing angle slightly between the two so they do not read as mirror copies.
If the coconut texture lines start looking too busy, thin them out, a dozen well-placed short strokes reads as rough husk far better than covering the whole surface in marks.
A light dusting of snow along the top of the shell and the rope ties the piece into the same winter garden as the rest of your birds.
Palette: Cerulean Blue,Lemon Yellow,Fibrous Brown,Cream
Bring in one more bright finch with a goldfinch perched on a snowy teasel head, pairing the bird’s bold red-and-gold face against the teasel’s spiky, architectural seed head. Paint the teasel first, a tall oval seed head covered in short pointed spikes radiating outward, painted dry brush style so the spikes stay crisp and separated rather than blurring into a solid oval.
Build the goldfinch with its red face mask painted as one clean flat shape first, then the black-and-white head pattern around it, and finally the warm gold wing bar that gives this bird its name, kept as a single bold stripe across the black wing rather than broken into feathers.
The teasel’s spikes are the part most likely to collapse into a shapeless blob if rushed, so work slowly outward from the central oval with short confident flicks of a nearly dry brush, leaving tiny gaps of cream between spikes near the top where snow has settled.
If gold feels too close to your lemon yellow elsewhere, mix in a touch of raw sienna for a warmer, richer gold specific to this bird.
Palette: Goldfinch Red,Warm Gold,Lamp Black,Cream
Give the bullfinch a final, more atmospheric outing as a bullfinch fluffed up against falling snow on a cherry branch, feathers puffed out for warmth rather than sitting sleek. Paint the body noticeably rounder and fuller than your earlier bullfinches, almost ball-shaped, to read clearly as a fluffed, cold bird rather than a relaxed one.
The cherry branch itself can stay bare and simple, since the real subject of this piece is the falling snow, added last as a scatter of small white dots and a few larger soft blobs flicked across the whole painting with a loaded brush or the toothbrush splatter trick from earlier in this list.
Where this piece can go wrong is adding the snowfall too early, if you splatter before the bird and branch are fully dry, the white marks smear into the colour beneath, so wait until everything else is completely dry before adding a single fleck.
For a softer snowfall than splatter gives, dab a small sponge lightly loaded with white gouache across the sky instead, it gives rounder, gentler flakes.
You Will Need
- toothbrush for splatter
Palette: Dusty Rose,Lamp Black,Chocolate Brown,Cream
Bring in the blackbird, a blackbird pulling a red berry from a snowy cotoneaster, the simplest silhouette in the whole list painted in one bold flat black shape with just the bright orange-yellow beak and eye ring breaking it up. Build the body first as one confident black oval, then the beak, painted in a clean warm orange-yellow and angled downward mid-tug on a small red berry.
The cotoneaster branch trails diagonally across the lower part of the page, dense with small round red berries and tiny oval leaves, each berry kept as a simple flat dot rather than individually shaded, with snow settled in a thin line along the branch’s upper side.
Because the bird’s body is almost entirely one flat black shape, the beak’s exact colour and angle carry the whole expression, so mix a true warm orange rather than a dull yellow-brown, and angle it slightly open as if actively pulling at the berry.
If cotoneaster berries feel too small and fiddly to paint individually, cluster them in loose groups of three or four dots rather than spacing every single one out separately.
Palette: Lamp Black,Orange Yellow,Berry Red,Cream
Close the robin trio of this list with a robin standing on a snowy gate post with its chest puffed out, the boldest, most confident pose of the three. Paint the gate post as a simple flat rectangular column in chocolate brown, slightly tapered or capped at the top, with a thick, rounded cap of snow sitting squarely across the flat top surface.
Build the robin standing fully upright rather than perched sideways, chest pushed forward and rounded, legs slightly apart for a planted, confident stance, head held level rather than tilted. This straight-on, puffed pose is the most graphic of all the robins here, so keep every edge crisp and the orange bib perfectly flat and symmetrical.
If the stance starts looking stiff, widen the gap between the two legs very slightly and tilt the tail just a touch to one side, small asymmetries like that keep an upright pose feeling alive rather than carved.
For more ideas on painting this bird across different poses and seasons, a bird pencil drawing guide is worth a look before you commit to paint.
Palette: Robin Orange,Chocolate Brown,Lamp Black,Cream
End the whole set with a waxwing perched on a frozen crabapple branch, a fitting final piece since it pulls together everything practiced across the earlier waxwing ideas: the crest, the mask, the wax-tipped wing marks and a cluster of bright berries. Paint the crabapple branch first, slightly thicker and woodier than the rowan or hawthorn branches earlier in this list, with several small round crabapples clustered together, each one given a thin icy glaze of pale blue-white to show they are frozen rather than fresh.
Build the waxwing using the same sequence as your very first idea, fawn base, crest, black mask, then the small red and yellow wing and tail details added last, so this final piece feels like a confident echo of where the whole list began.
Once this one is finished, the natural way to vary the series further is to revisit any bird here with a different season in mind using a winter nature journal drawing guide for spring blossom or autumn colour instead of snow.
If you have enjoyed working through this whole flock, a set of winter birds journal pages makes a nice next project to place your paintings into.
Palette: Raw Sienna,Berry Red,Icy Blue,Cream
What to Do Next
Pick one bird that caught your eye on the first scroll through, mix just four or five gouache colours, and keep your paper to one sitting’s worth of work. Start with the robin or the first bullfinch if this is new to you, then work your way toward the waxwing flocks once the flat shapes feel comfortable under your brush.
Frequently Asked Questions
What gouache colours do I need for a bird illustration series like this?
A small core palette covers every bird here: a warm fawn or sienna, berry red, cerulean blue, lemon yellow, lamp black, chocolate brown and white. Mix rose, olive and grey tones from these rather than buying extra tubes.
How do I keep gouache edges crisp instead of fuzzy?
Let each shape dry completely before painting the next colour beside or over it. Working wet-on-wet is what causes soft, bleeding edges, so pause between layers and use a hairdryer on low if you are in a hurry.
Which bird is easiest to start with as a beginner?
The robin is the simplest shape in this whole list, a round body, round head and one flat orange bib with no complicated markings. Start with the robin on a terracotta pot or gate post before attempting a waxwing or jay.
How do I stop every bird looking the same stiff shape?
Vary the head angle, the direction of the gaze and the tail position on every bird, even within the same species. A small tilt or lift is the difference between a stiff illustration and one that feels caught mid-moment.
Can I paint these birds without real snow or berries on hand for reference?
Yes, photographs work perfectly well and are how most illustrators work from anyway. Search for the species name alongside winter or snow and keep two or three reference images open while you paint each one.