John Muir Laws's guide to drawing birds is itself winged, soaring between a devotion not only to art but also to the lives, forms, and postures of the birds themselves. Here, artistic technique and the exquisite details of natural history intertwine, and drawing becomes the vehicle for seeing. As Laws writes, "To draw feathers, you must understand how feathers grow, overlap, and insert into the body. To create the body, you must have an understanding...

Step-by-step examples show how to draw cardinals, herons, owls, robins, flamingos, mallards, penguins, hummingbirds, puffins, woodpeckers, loons, peacocks, and swans.