Oil Pastel Duck Stamp

Artist Statment

This piece is of a wood duck sitting on a branch against a very green, woodlandy background. I used oil pastels mainly, after I sketched it out. Then I used a charcoal pencil to add some shadow where I couldn't with the pastels, and I also used a white gel pen to add the shine on the eye and the spots on the chest as well as to touch up some other areas that i had accidentally gotten color on. I decided to draw this piece because first off, the other option, the pixilated color study, looked super tedious, and I didn't really want to deal with that. Also, I chose this type of duck because it looked the most fun, and mad some really interesting details, such as the gradients on the head, and the neat patterns in the chest.

I used the formal balance technique in this piece, as well as selective focus. I used formal balance because I thought that having the duck off center would be strange and distracting. I could have drawn two ducks to make the piece stronger compositionally, but I didn't think I would be able to get the piece finished on time if I had done that. My project evolved a lot throughout the making process. First, I sketched it out using the grid method, but once I had finished that, my teacher told me that I could use the light table to just trace the photo into a sketch, rather than by hand, so I went and touched up my sketch that way. Next, the whole time I was working, I was kind of hating everything I did. I couldn't get the background color correct and I just had to keep going with the wrong color, I messed up the spots on the chest, and I really screwed up the log at the bottom. But after I finished the piece, I submitted it to the Junior Duck Stamp Competition for which I was drawing it. I didn't think I would win anything, but I ended up getting second place in my group.

This piece doesn't have much meaning. Just that ducks are an important piece of our ever-changing ecosystem, and we must conserve their land to save them, and cannot continue on with our barbaric actions that destroy their homes. If I could change it to make it stronger, there is quite a bit I would like to change. First, I really would like to fix the background. Maybe i would add some trees in the background, maybe some water, but really any sort of detail would be better than the plain, unnaturally bright green that is there now. Also, I would just go in and fix up some of the details within the duck, mostly on the back and tail, just because I think it looks a little juvenile the way it is,