Birds of Paradise in Sketches and Drawings

Birds of Paradise are beautiful animals. Before the covid pandemic, I often guided visitors on trips across West Papua to watch them. We spent between 3 and 21 days to watch as many of them in the forest both in lowland, lower montane and higher montane forests. Some of the 42 species that I have seen in West Papua include Glossy-mantled Manucode, Lesser Birds of Paradise, King Bird of Paradise, Magnificent Riflebird, Magnificent Bird of Paradise, Western Parotia, Black Sicklebill, Long-tailed Paradigala, Vogelkop Superbird of Paradise, Red Bird of Paradise, and Wilson's Bird of Paradise. There was a bird whose physical appearance was similar to Ribbon-tailed Bird of Paradise that I saw in Tambrauw mountains but I was not sure which species it was because I did not take pictures of it. I was soaking myself in a river when I saw it flying above me over the river. I saw Wallace Standard Wing in Halmahera. 

Vector illustration of Lesser Birds of Paradise

A colored pencil drawing of a male Lesser Birds of Paradise

Because my hobby is drawing, I like to make sketches, drawings and watercolour paintings of these beautiful birds. Although I don't draw birds very often now, I still have got some photos of the artworks in my folder. 

Male and Female Lesser Birds of Paradise in watercolour

The availability of digital drawing application such as Autodesk Sketchbook has enabled artist to create illustration directly from the surface of their cell phone and tablets using a stylus. The artwork can then be offered to customers as printed illustrations on a lot of products such as t-shirt, mugs, skirt, cell phone case, pillow, shower curtain, and a lot more. I used to create vector illustrations using Macromedia Freehand and Inkscape. Later, I decided to use a bitmap based drawing app - the Autodesk Sketchbook. Drawing with stylus is more intuitive than with a mouse. 

Digital drawing of a Male Red Bird of Paradise

However, I still like creating sketches and drawing of animals, flowers, boats, fish and human figures manually using pencil on paper. I have got more freedom when I hold a graphite pencil. 

Most of the artworks are now available to anyone who is interested in having it as printed illustration on various goods such as t-shirts, mugs, and even bed cover on the following online shop: Birds of Paradise and Wildlife Art. Your purchase of products in this shop greatly helps me maintain this blog. This is written by Charles Roring. 

Also read:

• Birding in Minahasa
• Manado City Birdwatching and Sightseeing Tour
• Birding in North Sulawesi
• Birding in Sonder of Minahasa
• Birdwatching in Sulawesi
• Birdwatching and butterflywatching in Sonder