Duck Stamp

For this project, I was assigned to create a duck stamp. For this I had to follow a specific rubric which allowed me to pick any duck I wanted to create and then I had to make sure it included the following ideas to make it look as real as possible, for the Junior Duck Stamp. For this assignment I choose to draw a Mottled duck. I choose this duck specifically because the difference in the head and the body colors fascinated me.

to start off, the materials I used for this project were, watercolor paper, colored pencil, regular pencil, acrylic paint and watercolor paint. Firstly, I started by looking at a Mottled duck and then begin to sketch it out on my paper. Disclaimer, I used a picture of this duck as a guide as to what it looked like, however, I used my own creative ideas on what I wanted the duck to be doing and in what habitat I wanted it in. Once I had my sketch of the duck with pencil, I began to go in with watercolor and create the green, blue, brownish, water of the body of water it is in. Once the water was finished, I used colored pencil to create the body of the Mottled duck. I took a lot of time on the body of the duck because there are little tedious spots that take time and focus on it. When the duck was complete I added tall grass on either side to poke out of the water to get more a perspective and angle on the duck.

Overall, I am very pleased with how this project turned out. I worked really hard on this project and I am proud of how real it looks. One thing I am especially proud of is the water and the grass. The water took me a lot of time but it turned out just the way I wanted it. It shows improvement from last years because of the flow of the water is even which makes is look realistic as it is all going one way. Besides that, there were still some parts that took me quite some time to do and were challenging to overcome. The most time consuming and challenging part was drawing on the small detailed feathers of the duck and making it compliment its body shape to give the real life affect of the duck sitting in the water. Anyways I am still very much proud of the way it turned out because I worked very hard on this and I can see the significant change and growth from last years.