Wild Life Drawing Online: Pigeons with Charlie Bingham

How do you feel about pigeons? These birds’ lives are so entwined with those of us humans, and opinions on them are most certainly divided. Some loathe them, regard them as dirty, and refer to them with that dreaded term “vermin”. Others are charmed by their gentle nature and pretty iridescent plumage, and are soothed by the soft sound of their cooing. Can you guess which camp we fall into? It will come as no surprise that we LOVE them. 

All this being said, we thought it was high time for a class celebrating these humble heroes! And who better to join us than bird enthusiast and author Charlie Bingham? During the session, Charlie will tell us about the adventures she went on around the UK while writing her brilliant new book The Life-Affirming Magic of Birds. We will discuss the whole book, but our focus for the drawing will be on pigeons. Charlie will have lots of surprising facts about these familiar birds, and will teach us about the history that we share with them, going all the way back to Roman times, when they were one of the first species of bird to be domesticated.

Artist and nature lover Jennie Webber will host the session and will guide you through the process of observational drawing. She will provide plenty of tips and tricks that she’s learned during her 10 years teaching people how to draw animals. We will work from some high-quality reference images, and will study the evolutionary traits that make pigeons unique. 

The class is open to all abilities, so whether your sketching skills are still hatching or you're a fully fledged artist, you’ll get loads out of the session. The basic materials you need to take part are some paper, a pencil, a sharpener and a rubber, but if you’d like to experiment with other materials, please feel free to get creative! We will email you an event link along with instructions and the reference images before the event. As with all our online sessions, we will send out a recording of the class afterwards so that you can watch it back as many times as you like.

This class is the first in our new 'Book Club' series. You don’t need to have read the book to join the session, but we’re sure that by the end you’ll be heading to your nearest bookshop to pick up your copy.