Duck Stamp

For the duck stamp I drew inspiration from my last piece with the technique of the background. I layered different shades of blue and green to get the water and make it look like there was a depth to it. Adding highlights with white and a light blue was what I did to add more detail to the piece. Then I went in to one side of the piece and added a beach/marsh land with a light brown and accents of a darker brown. I then focused on the duck. I chose to do a lesser scaup as my species of duck and decided upon the female lesser scaup instead of the male. The lesser scaup attracted me because I wonder why it was a lesser and who decided that it was lesser? I still don't know. I liked the female rather than the male to paint because there were more variations within the colors of the female.

I used acrylic paint like I did for my last painting. I'm finding it much easier to work with if I'm patient and know how to layer my paints to get it the way I want. I feel this shows my growth with this medium as I used to avoid it. I tried to use color and shades to show movement and the shadows of the duck and the water as it flows. The water is a bright blue and has a good contrast to the browns of the lesser scaup.