Long Island Yellow Shafted Northern Flicker

MEDIUM: Digital Painting | STYLE: Painterly Realism | SIZE: 8 x 10 | ORIENTATION: Landscape | TOOLS: Procreate, 13″ iPad Pro, Apple Pencil Pro | AVAILABILITY: Prints available.

The Northern Flicker — often called the Yellow-Shafted Flicker for the bright golden underside of its flight feathers — is an extraordinary woodpecker. Unlike most woodpeckers, it forages on the ground hunting for ants rather than working tree bark. Its striking coloring includes golden-brown wings with yellow undersides, a white, tan, and black spotted breast, a chestnut-brown face, grey head feathers with white tips, and a bright red chevron on the back of its neck. Spotting this bird in flight or on the ground is always a thrilling sight.

ARTIST’S PROCESS: Long Island Yellow Shafted Northern Flicker was painted in Procreate on a 13″ iPad Pro using the Apple Pencil Pro. This technique replicates traditional painting’s depth and texture through layered digital brushwork. The process began with careful structural drawing, followed by multiple rounds of color blocking, value refinement, and detail work on feather texture to capture the species’ appearance and temperament. Shadow and light were built up using multiple Procreate layers and specific brushes, and the environmental details were drawn from the original reference photograph of this bird.

CHALLENGE: Multiple areas of this bird have very different and distinct feather shapes, colors, and patterns. Using a series of layers for each separate section, a sketch of the feather shape was drawn first, followed by a layer for color-blocking the pattern. A final pass added shade and light consistent with each section, and the layers were then collapsed to create the finished bird.

SUBJECTS AND THEMES: Wildlife — Nature — Northern Flicker — Yellow-Shafted Northern Flicker — Woodpecker — Ground-Foraging Bird — Long Island Wildlife — Birding — Procreate Artwork — Painterly Realism