Duck stamp

The subject of my creation are two wood ducks, one female and one male. The setting in my artwork is a pond with flowing water. I created this by printing wood ducks off as a reference, then using the grid method to grid both papers. Then I used colored pencils and watercolor to create the background and ducks. I chose to create this because when I was looking at all the different species of ducks I fell in love with this species of duck and the colors presented. I used color in the ducks to show their bright, beautiful colors. I also used movement in the background to show the waves throughout the water.

Throughout my artwork I used selective focus with the colors I chose to make the ducks stand out more. For example, on the male wood duck the bold, bright colors make the duck stand out more, and the shadow is hidden more with the darker colors with less details. Your eyes are also drawn to the bold blue feathers on the female duck. I started off by just drawing the female wood duck, but I wanted to add a male duck to give it more composition and make it more appealing, so I added a male duck. I started drawing the background with colored pencil, but I figured that was too hard, so instead I used watercolor and I think it turned out better.

The meaning behind my artwork is to show the importance of birds and how beautiful they are. I chose wood ducks because they’re beautiful birds and I was drawn to their unique colors, as many others would be as well. I wanted to draw others attention to my art, so they would see how pretty these birds are too. This relates to my life because I have always had an interest in birds whether it’s watching them through my kitchen windows or feeding the ducks at the zoo. I figured this would be a fun project to show my interest in these ducks. I think my artwork could be stronger by moving the female duck up on the paper because it looks like she is sitting on the males head from the shadow. Also I would change the background to make it more subtle as to all the different colors and lighter spots and darker spots in the back.