Duck Stamp

The final project of this semester was the Duck Stamp project. For this project, I had to pick a kind of duck that I wanted to draw, and then accurately draw the male and female of the species. I chose the green-winged teal because I like its variety colors. I also had to find a background in which to draw them in. I chose a shallow pond because most green-winged teals live in them. The project had to be done on a 9' by 12' piece of paper and could be done in any medium. I chose to use colored pencil because I knew I could get very detailed in my drawing.

To start this project I had to find a picture of the male and the female green-winged teal. Then I got a picture of a pond and photo-shopped the two ducks onto it. I printed this and then gridded it and a piece of drawing paper. After this, I began my drawing. I started out by sketching the outline of the ducks and the grass area. After this, I drew in the duck with as much detail as possible. Next, I did the grass, the sky, the reflection of the ducks and then the rest of the water. I tried to make the color of the water become darker as it came towards the foreground and lighter at the edge of the grass.

This project took a long time to complete, but I think all the effort and time put in was worth it. I struggled with getting the reflections of the ducks right at first. They seemed too much like the actual ducks, so I put blue in with the reflections which made them look more distorted. This was my goal. If I could go back and do it again I might choose to do the background in acrylic paint because it was difficult making the water look full. I had to do a tremendous amount of burnishing with my colored pencils. I am really happy with how it turned out and I think it is my best work of art so far this year.