How to draw · Challenge · about 50 minutes
Peacock
You need: Paper, Pencil, Eraser. Optional: A plate or bowl to trace the half circle, Colored pencils: blue, green, gold and brown.
Thick lines: draw these now. Thin gray: already drawn. Dashed: light guides you erase later.
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1. Draw a big, light half circle for the fanned tail. Its center is low in the middle of your paper, and it should fill most of the page.
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2. From the center, draw light spokes out to the half circle, evenly spaced like the ribs of a hand fan. Each spoke will carry one long feather.
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3. Draw two smaller light arcs around the same center: one about two thirds of the way out and one about halfway. They are the rows of eyespots.
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4. Draw the peacock in front of the fan's center: a long, curving neck that widens into a teardrop body. It hides the middle of the fan.
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5. Draw the small round head turned to the left, with a pointed beak, an eye with a pale ring around it, and a crest of five thin stalks with tiny tips.
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6. Add the folded wing on the body's side, the two thin legs with three toes each, and a short line for the ground.
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7. On the inner arc, draw the nearest row of feathers: each eyespot is a rounded oval with a point aimed at the center. Stop where the body is in front.
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8. On the middle arc, draw a row of bigger eyespots, placed between the ones below. Stop each one where a nearer eyespot overlaps it.
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9. On the big half circle, draw the outer row, the biggest eyespots, again between the ones below and tucked behind them.
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10. Draw the edge of the fan: a scalloped line with one bump around each outer feather, and the two sides of the fan running down behind the body.
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11. Draw a thin spine from near the body out to the point of every eyespot. Stop where an eyespot or the body is in front.
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12. Erase the half circle, the spokes and the two arcs.
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13. Inside every eyespot, draw a smaller oval and fill a dark center. The same pattern repeats on each feather and only gets smaller toward the middle.
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14. Add short, feathery strokes along both sides of each spine, angled out like the branches of a fern. This is the soft texture of the feathers.
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15. Shade a middle value on the right side of the neck and body, on the wing, and inside the oval of each eyespot, around its dark center.
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16. Shade the shadow under the feet darkest. Light, middle and dark values plus the dark eyespot centers make the tail shimmer.
Practice here
Tip: Trace around a plate for the half circle if a freehand curve is hard.