Duckstamp

"Trumpeter Swan"

9" x 12"

January 3rd, 2020

I've never seen a swan so when I saw that swans were an option I knew I wanted to do. I picked the trumpeter swan because the feathers looked generally white and I wanted to challenge myself with the highlights and shadows. This projects relates to my life because it's something that I'm interested in, I like looking at birds and it something my grandfather always points out anytime he sees a bird.

First I found images from various websites and did some research about where the commonly live, what the difference between and male and female trumpeter swans look like, and then studied the wing and feather pattern. After I found all my sources I sketched out where I wanted the ducks to go and how I wanted htme in proportion to the habitat in the back. Then I started coloring the water in with colored pencil and burnishing. That was really difficult because it was layer upon layers upon layers and was taking an incredibly long time. so i switched to chalk pastels and finish the water and eliminate the white of the paper showing through the blue colored pencil. After I added the chalk pastels I went over and blended it with the colored pencil with my fingers. After that I grabbed some different shades of blue and green to add to the water and to start doing the marshy grassy background. I went back to the chalk pastels for the swans and used white and really really light cream-yellow color to add the shadows. I used plain black india ink for the face and gel pens on top of that for the the eyes and nostrils.

I was originally planning to do the whole thing in colored pencil, but I quickly realized that I was working way harder than I needed to and it was going to take an incredibly long time, after I switched over to pastels and ink everything looked better nad was a lot quicker. I think my project evolved the most when I added another swan to fill up some of the space that was empty. I think my next steps would be adding more layers to the wings and the feathers so they're really distinct.