Draw a Folk Art Style Kingfisher in Procreate with me!

1. Class Introduction: It's almost summer, the perfect time to dive into some bird illustration, not that we ever need an excuse. In this class, I invite you to explore the beautiful, whimsical world of folk art with me. Hello, and welcome to my class. My name is Irina, and I'm the UK based artist behind the brand Busy May Studio. Today, I'm thrilled to invite you to join me on a creative journey, where we will design a common Kingfisher in a folk art style. If you've taken my previous two classes, you know we've already painted this lovely bird using digital watercolour and the stylized cartoon style, perfect for picture books. But if you're new here, don't worry at all. You absolutely do not need to have taken those classes to enjoy this one. I'll cover all the essentials from scratch, and all the class resources are available to you for free. This time, we're approaching this gorgeous bird from an entirely new perspective. If you follow my work, you probably already know that I'm a huge fan of folk art. Today, I'm so excited to share some of my favorite personal tips and techniques with you. This class is perfect for you if you love the folk art aesthetic as much as I do, and if you want to create quick, charming illustration without getting bogged down by rigid anatomy or complex botany. By the end of this class, you will have a charming, completed illustration of a common Kingfisher, a piece of art ready to turn into a custom sticker, a greeting card, or a lovely print to hang on your wall, a toolkit of core folk art design principles that you can apply to birds, animals, flowers, or even people in your future project. I'll be using the mini version of my Folkio Procreate brush set, which you can download for free, and it will be perfectly enough for you to create this cute illustration. But if you'd like the full folko set, it's available to purchase in my shop. It's definitely worth looking at as it's packed with brushes, animal bird and botanical elements, beautiful pattern brushes, decorative border brushes, and colour palettes and texture canvases. I'll leave the link in the description. If you are ready, grab your iPad, your pencil, and let's begin. 2. Materials and Tools: If you intend to follow this class step by step, you'll need the full Komini brush set for Procreate, the colour palette, texture overlay and the Kingfisher sketch we used in the previous classes. All these materials are free to download in the resources section of this class. For sketching, I'll be using the Scopus brush. It's a default Procreate brush that can be found in the pencils group. I'm also attaching it in the resources section for your convenience. And of course, you will need an iPad, a pencil, and Procreate installed on your iPad. 3. Style Overview: Folk art is a decorative art style that focuses more on storytelling and charm than realism. It often used simple, flattened shapes with a naive, stylized look, intentionally ignoring traditional rules of perspective and proportion. Colors are usually solid with very little shading or volume, often using a limited palette. Common motifs include animals, birds, fish, and detailed botanical decorations, which can act as backgrounds, decorative elements, or cultural symbols within the artwork. Different figians have developed their run folk art traditions. Scandinavian folk art is known for its clean lines, symmetrical patterns, and cozy floral designs. Eastern European styles tend to feature intricate florals and bold colors, while Germanic and American folk art, such as fracture, include hearts, tulips and geometric decorative patterns. In my own art, I don't usually stick to one specific traditional folk art style. Instead, I like to focus on the universal elements of folk illustration while naturally leaning into the rich visual history of my Eastern European background. 4. Applying Style: Colours: Now let's see how we can apply these features to our old friend Ken fecha. Let's begin with the colors as it's the most straightforward aspect. In the first two classes of the series, we've determined our very limited colour palette, blue, orange, and brown. The values of each tone, light, medium, and dark. This time, I'm going to stick to three main colors for the base layers plus black, white, light blue. And pink for details. If I need darker areas, I'll just use the blending mode change technique. I'm going to use botanical elements to create a folk art motif. And in the next lesson, we'll see how we can simplify the shape of our bird. 5. Applying Style: Shapes: Previously discussed, folk art is characterized with its simple naive shapes. That's why we're going to simplify our initial sketch first, yet still preserving the main features of the bird, as we've also determined before, what makes a common kingfish recognizable apart from its distinct colour palette is the shape and size of its head and beak in comparison to its body. So while sketching, we need to make sure we more or less observe those features. There is a quick way you can sketch any birds side view in simple shape. An ellipse for the head, a bigger egg shaped ellipse for the body, a triangular shape for the wing, a triangle or rectangle for the tail. And the smaller elongated triangle for the beak. Let's practice quickly. If you're sketching digitally, it's even easier as you can move your shapes around till you find their perfect positioning and style. 6. Sketching: So I've created a new screen sized canvas, and now I'm going to paste in the sketch we used before. You can find it right in the resources section of this class. First, I'll reduce the opacity of the sketch layer, since we'll only be using it as a guide. Then I'll create a new layer on top. Using the Scopus brush, which is a default procreate brush, you can find in the pencil group or download from the resources. I'll start mapping out the mean shapes of the bird. We want to keep it as simple as possible. A squished lips for the head, an egg shaped the lips for the body, around the triangle for the wing, a soft rectangle for the tail, and a long, sharp triangle for the beak. Now I can switch the original sketch layer off as I won't be needing it anymore. Looking at my simple blocks, I want to decide what else I can do to really make the sketch match our folk art style. I think I'm going to make the body just a bit smaller to move it slightly further away from realistic proportions. I've also decided to turn the head the opposite way because I think it gives the bird a lot more character. Next, let's join all these map shapes together with a smooth curved line. I'll also add the detail for the beak, the eye, and the little cheek. I definitely want to map out the distinct colour patches on the face, too, as that's one of the Kingfisher's most recognizable features. And just like that, the main bird sketch is ready. I also want to add a simple curved line right below the bird for the sake of our composition. My kingfisher is going to be sitting on a twig, but since we'll be using stamp brushes for the botanical elements later on, the line is purely for guidance. If you feel like you need to tweak anything in your own sketch, I highly recommend going to the adjustments menu, selecting the liquefied tool, and gently pushing the lines around until you're completely happy with the result. It's a lifesaver for quickly fixing proportions. With our sketch completely ready, we can now move on to the fun part, coloring our final illustration. 7. Base Colours: I've created a screen size canvas and just a quick reminder. If you intend to print your final illustration, make sure you choose a larger canvas size on the higher resolution from the start. The very first thing I'm going to do is drop our overlay texture right on top. This step is completely optional, but I personally love adding textures to my illustrations. It gives them so much more character and visual interest. For folk art pieces, especially a good overlay creates a beautiful wood fabric surface effect. I'll change the blending mode of this texture layer to color burn and then lock it so I don't accidentally drawn it. Next, I'll create a new layer and drag it down so it sits right between the background and our texture overlay. From here on out, all our illustration layers will live in this space. Now I'm going to copy and piece the sketch we created in the previous lesson. I place it above the texture layer since it won't actually be a part of our final artwork and I'll reduce its opacity, so it's just a subtle guide. When planning the colors for any illustration, I always start with a background because it sets the tone for everything else. Right now, my background is pure white. However, I know I want to keep some parts of my kingfish pure white, too, like those distinct patches on its face, and I don't want them to blend into the background. So we're going to change things up. One option is to simply tap on your background layer and choose a soft off white colour from your palette or color feel. But since I want this piece to have even more of that traditional folk art charm, I'm going to add a novel background instead. If you're familiar with my art, you probably know how much I love a good cameo vignette. To do this, I'll grab the ultimate filler brush from the Folkio mini set and pick the second swatch from the left on the bottom row of our palette. I'll draw a large oval, and by holding my apple pencil down at the end of the stroke, Procreate will snap it into a clean shape. You can easily tweak it using the handles in the contextual menu at the top. Once you're happy with the shape, just fill it in. Our background is ready. Now we can start creating our solid color shapes. An important tip for organizing your layers at this stage. We are going to keep the head, body, and tail together as one solid shape on a single layer. The wing will go on its own separate layer, and the beacon facial features will be kept separate, too. Let's create a new layer. Using that same ultimate filler brush, I'll pick our main blue swatch and outline the head, body, and tail. Then drop the color to fill it in. See how beautifully that overlay texture is already coming through. On another new layer, I'll paint the wing in exactly the same way. Then on a separate layer, I'll paint the beak using the brown colour from our palette. Next up the orange belly, the facial details, the eye, and the cheek. I'll create a new layer right above the blue body and set it as a clipping mask. With our orange swatch, I'll paint the belly and the orange patch on the face. Using a clipping mask keeps all our new brush strokes perfectly inside the lines of the body shape below it. Next, let's add that lovely feathery white patch on its own new layer. At this point, let's turn off the sketch layer for a moment just to make sure we are happy with our base blocks. When I say happy, I don't mean looking for perfect, flawless shapes and lines. That's actually what I love most about folk art. It's wonderfully naive, childlike approach. My shapes are far from perfect, and I fully intend to keep them this way. Let's turn the sketch back on so we can map out the facial features on a new layer. I'll start with the eye. Because the eye sits right against that pure white fish patch, I'm going to pick our off white color so it stands out. I'll sketch a classic fish shaped eye. This is the signature eye style I love giving to all my bird, animals, and characters. On a new layer, clip to the eye, I'll add the black pupil. Oh. You can add a little white highlight if you like. Finally, I'll add a sweet rosy check using the pink from our palette. We can now turn the sketch layer off completely, since we won't be needing it anymore. Our base colours are locked in, and in the next lesson, we'll start bringing the fisher to life with shading and even more texture. 8. Shading and Texture: Now let's add some shading. In folk art, we don't add shading to create realistic volume, but rather to accentuate the character's features and give them a bit more definition. First, I'm going to clean up my layers panel a little bit by flattening all the layers that contain the facial features. Looking closely at my bird, I also feel like the back of the head could use a little tweak. So I'll grab the liquefy tool and gently push the edges until I'm completely happy with the silhouette. Now we are ready for shading. I'll create a new layer right between the blue body layer and the orange belly layer and change it blending mode to multiply. I'm selecting the cross hatch texturizer brush from our set. And for the color, I'm actually sticking with the exact same blue we used for the body. Using very light gentle touches, I'll build up just a subtle hint of shadow in key areas. Next, I want to add some depth to the orange belly. I'll create a new layer right on top of the orange layer and set is a clipping mask, so our work stays perfectly inside the shape. Just like before, I'll switch the blending mode to multiply, select our original orange color, and use light sweeping motions to add a touch of shade to the belly and face. To keep a beautiful bold contrast between the wing and the rest of the body, I'm actually not going to add any shading to the wing at all. Oops, I can see that a little bit of my orange shading spilled over onto the blue parts of the body. No worries at all. I'll just grab the eraser to and quickly clean up those edges. Let's add a tiny bit of shadow to the underside of the beak. I'll create a new layer directly above the beak, clip it as a mass, and change the blending mode to multiply, using the same brown color we used to paint the beak, I'll add just a soft touch of shadow along the bottom edge. Before we move on, I've realized I forgot to accent the area right around the eye. Let's jump back down to our blue shading layer for a quick moment and add a tiny bit of definition there to make the eye pop. Finally, even though we already have our gorgeous canvas overlay texture running through the whole piece, I'd love to experiment with an extra layer of texture to give the illustration even more depth and character. I'll create a brand new layer right at the top of our illustration stack and pick the same cross hatch texturizer brush we used for shading. This time, I'll select our light blue color and increase the brush size. Using a gentle tap tap motion, I'm going to dust this texture over the bird. To blend it beautifully, let's change the layer blending mod to lighter color and bring the opacity down just a bit. Looking at it now, I don't quite like how this texture looks over the orange belly. It washes it out lethel, so I'll grab my razor and lift the texture of the orange parts entirely. However, I absolutely love how it looks on the blue areas. It gives the head and the body this gorgeous subtle feathery effect. And with that, our kingfisher is completely textured and ready for the most exciting part, the decorative details. 9. Decorative Details: The very first thing I'd like to do is stamp the twig that our bird is sitting on. To do that, I'll create a new layer right above our oval background. I'll select the leafy twig, to brush from the set, pick the brown color from our palette and stamp it anywhere on the canvas. From there, I'll flip this botanical element horizontally and adjust its position, creating the perfect impression that our kingfisher is perched right on it. Now I want to add another twig on the opposite side to balance out our composition. On a new layer, using that same brown color, I'll grab the leafy twig three brush and stamp it down. Again, I can scale and rotate it whichever way looks best to me. If you'd like your twigs to look a bit darker, you can either pick a deeper color from the color field or you can experiment with blending modes. Try changing the layer mode to multiply to see how it interacts with the background. Next, I want to use a different twig stamp directly on the bird's belly. I'll create a new layer right on top of our orange belly layer. This time, I'm using the leafy twig one brush and picking a pure white colour, I'll stamp the twig onto the canvas and play around with its positioning and scale to make sure it sits beautifully within the shape of the belly. I'm going to stop with the stamp brushes here, though you are welcome to use as many as you like in your own piece. Now, it's time to add hand drawn decorative elements to the rest of our bird. This is absolutely my favorite part, because there are no rules, and you can have as much fun as you want. Let's create a new layer, making sure it sits underneath our feathery texture layer. I'll grab the colored pencil brush, and the colors I'll be using are our light blue and a little bit of pure white. First, I'm going to draw some decorative patterns directly onto the wing. Because the wing is right in the foreground, it's very common in folk art to see this area most richly decorated. Just relax, use your imagination and let your pencil guide you. Next, I'll switch over to the eraser tool, making sure my eraser is also set to the colored pencil brush so the texture matches, and I'll create a few tiny areas within my drawings to add even more intricate detail. To balance out that bright white element on the belly, I'll switch back to my brush using pure white. I'll add some simple decorative strokes to the tail, the face, and the top of the head. And we're almost done. The very last thing I would like to add is a decorative frame around the background oval. For that, I add a new layer right above the background oval. Take the classic folk frame brush and pick this dark blue color. Holding the pencil down, I drew a frame around the shape, making sure it closes smoothly. And just like that, our folk style illustration is ready. 10. Bonus Lesson 1: Quick Alterations: In this bonus lesson, I'm going to show you how to make a few quick adjustments to give your illustration an entirely different look. Before we begin, I highly recommend duplicating your artwork so you don't overwrite your original piece. To do that, just go back to your Procreate gallery, swipe left off on your artwork and select Duplicate. Now, let's take a few simple steps to completely transform the mood of our illustration. First, I'd like to change the color of our background vignette, turning it from light to dark. Making sure you're on your background of a layer, select a dark blue color from our palette and simply drop it right onto the shape to fill it in. Now that our background is dark, we need to make the twigs lighter so they create a beautiful contrast. To do this easily, I'm going to pinch our two twig layers together to merge them. Then I'll head up to the adjustments menu, select hue saturation and brightness and bump the brightness slider up to about 60%. Look at how beautifully those botanical elements pop now. Finally, I want to change the color of our decorative frame so it stands out clearly against that new dark background. We're going to use a similar trick here. Make sure you are on the frame layer. Open the adjustments menu, select hue saturation brightness and slide the brightness up until the frame becomes a lovely vibrant light blue. To give it an even more striking effect, I'll use the transform tool to slightly scale down and adjust the frame so it sits perfectly snug, just inside the edge of the background oval. And that's with just a few incredibly simple color and brightness tweaks, you can completely change the overall look and feel of your folk art illustration. I can't wait to see which version you choose to create. 11. Bonus Lesson 2: Inspiration Sources: As a huge fan of folk art, I have built a large collection of books on the topic. Today, I'm sharing some of my absolute favorites to help inspire you on creative journey. The top spot on my list goes to this masterpiece by US based artist Dinara Mertipova. I consider her an absolute star of modern folk art. This book is a treasure chest of stunning illustrations, inspired by Slavic folk tales and traditional village life. Even better, Dinara shares practical tips for drawing characters, buildings, and small design elements alongside advice on choosing materials. It is my personal folk art Bible. It never leaves my desk, and whenever I hit a creative block, I simply open to a random page and start drawing. The magic happens every time. I'm such a big fan that I think I own every single book she has ever illustrated. Creative folk art and beyond by various artists. If you want a broader mix of inspiration, this book is fantastic. It features folk art and craft projects from several talented creators, while Dinara's work leans towards Eastern European styles. This book focuses heavily on Scandinavian designs. If you love huge vibes and traditional Swedish Norwegian or Danish art, this is the perfect addition to yourself. The Creature Garden by Harry and Zanna Goldhag. This book offers a wonderful look into mystical fauna and whimsical botanicals. The authors take a slightly different approach to the folk style. Their work is less flat and uses more shading and volume. If you want to challenge your skills by adding depth to your drawings, I highly recommend this one. Now some hidden gems, vintage charity shop books. Some of my best sources of inspiration are old books from charity shops. They often have nothing to do with modern illustration and art, and they usually focused on old school textile, pottery, or traditional crafts. Despite that, they're packed with beautiful pictures of authentic folk art elements. Keep an open eye for these when you are thrifting. They usually cost next to nothing, but their artistic value is huge. And some of unexpected inspirations everyday covers. Do not limit yourself to art books. I find immense inspiration in everyday books that have striking covers or internal graphics. For example, this poetry book I used to read to my children has a truly remarkable cover that always sparks new ideas. Whenever I spot a beautiful book at a friend's house or a local library, I snap a quick picture on my phone to save to my digital inspiration folder. What about you? What unique sources of art inspiration do you keep on your shelves? 12. Conclusive Thoughts: You made it to the end. Well done. Amazing job. I hope you'll consider sharing your beautiful illustrations in the discussions below or on Instagram and Facebook. Be sure to tag me on Instagram, so I can see your wonderful work. If anything was unclear or you have questions, please do not hesitate to leave comments below. I'm always here to help. Thank you so much for creating with me and see you next time.