Duck Stamp

The assignment for this project was to make a piece with ducks. I drew my ducks on a pond with a fern bush and reeds in the foreground and I drew a female and male duck. I chose two pictures that I liked the most of my chosen duck and found a pretty background. I then photoshopped my ducks into that background and tried to represent my photoshopped picture the best I could in my own drawing. I created my piece using markers and colored pencils. I used the colored pencils the background of water and the markers for more detail like the head's of the ducks. I chose to create this piece because I thought it was a very peaceful scene. Ducks on a pond are very familiar to me because I have a pond that ducks sometimes visit. I chose to draw wood ducks because the male wood duck is so colorful. Their green and red heads are really cool and stand out and I also felt like the pictures I chose to reference really showed a lot of the male duck and the female duck.

I arranged this piece so that the ducks are more on the left side of the piece. I chose to do this because I wanted a lot of room for my fern bush but also because this made it so the male wood duck was more in the center than the female. Although the female is a pretty duck, the male's colors were meant to be the focal point of my piece, so I centered him. In this piece, I used sharp focus and informal balance. I outlined my ducks with a fairly dark pencil so that they would be the focus of the piece. I used the informal balance because I didn't want my ducks to be perfectly centered in the piece. I also really liked the idea of the female deck gliding into the scene, so in order for this to happen, the female duck had to be at the edge of the paper.

This project evolved from one with a light blue background to one with blues that represent the color of water better. After looking at the colors in the ducks, I realized that my water color was too light, so I darkened the background. This really improved my piece and I am very happy with my final result.