You Can Draw a Wild Turkey

Native Americans introduced the turkey, their favorite game bird, to arriving Europeans. It soon became a traditional part of the Thanksgiving feast.
Although the turkey can fly short distances, this heavy bird must run several feet to launch into flight, making it easy prey to predators such as coyotes, foxes, and hawks.
In the spring, the male struts around, gobbling loudly and fanning his bright tail feathers. Then the woods rings with calls of turkeys looking for a mate and answering artfully crafted calls of hunters looking for a meal.
Before laying eggs, the hen scratches a hollow in dry leaves. In about four weeks, she hatches eight to twelve grayish poults. By late August, the young have shed their down and begun to separate into small flocks that forage for seeds, insects, frogs, and small reptiles.

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You will need:

• Acrylic paints
• 8”x10” canvas
• ¼” flat and 2 round brushes
• Spray bottle
• Palette
• Transfer paper
• Masking tape

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1. On sketch paper, divide a 5” high, 5½” wide rectangle diagonally, horizontally, and vertically. Place larger and smaller circles as guides for drawing your turkey.
   Hint: To properly position your turkey on the canvas, the bottom of the rectangle should be 2” from the bottom of the canvas, with the right side 1¼” from the right side of the canvas.
2. Once you have completed your sketch, place it on the canvas and tape it to the top edge. Insert graphite paper, graphite side down, and go over the sketch with a pencil. Fold the sketch back, but leave it taped so you can bring it back in to add later details.
3. On your palette, thin black paint with a little water and apply to the body of the turkey with the ¼” flat brush. Add white to black paint on your palette and lay in areas of gray on the tail and trees.
   Mix blue and a little more white into the gray for the background and markings on the turkey’s body.
4. For the foreground, combine white, burnt sienna, and a dab of yellow. Use this same mixture to detail feathers on the back part of the body.
5. Paint the wings white. After they dry, paint outlines and markings with your #2 round brush.
6. For the tail fan, mark in the white quill of the feathers. Work outward from these with burnt sienna and black.
7. Paint the legs a basic burnt sienna. Then cast light on the fronts with a little white. Next mix burnt sienna with black for detailing.
8. Add a little texture to the closest tree and paint in a few smaller branches. Dry leaves in foreground are indicated with random splotches of brown, yellow, and red. Bring some of these leaves up through the branches and trees.
   Last of all, with your wide brush, add several streaks of thinned white paint to indicate light filtering through trees.