Draw a Bird Day – April 8, 2027

History of Draw a Bird Day

Draw Bird Day originated in 1943. It is said that Dorie Cooper — who was 7 years old — visited her uncle at the hospital in the U.K. Dorie´s uncle was wounded in the war, having lost his right leg to a land mine. When Dorie came to the hospital, she asked her uncle to draw a bird to cheer him up and make him forget what he had been through in the war. After seeing her uncle’s picture, she started laughing and exclaimed that he was not a good artist.

Although the picture of her uncle was not very good, she decided to hang it in her room. Her uncle’s spirits were lifted by Dorie´s action. She demonstrated being an empathetic person being only seven years old. Every time Dorie came to visit her uncle thereafter, other wounded soldiers also had their day brightened by the event and held drawing contests to see who could produce the best bird pictures. The entire ward’s walls were decorated with bird drawings within several months.

Three years later Dorie was killed in a car accident and her coffin was full of bird drawings made by soldiers, nurses, and doctors from the war. Draw a Bird Day is celebrated to express joy in the simplest of things in life and as a way to help soldiers to forget the war at least for a short time. Dorie helped her uncle to forget the war by something as simple as drawing birds.