Duck Stamp

The main idea that guided my artwork was trying to realistically replicate an image of mallard ducks my dad took when we were at camp. My goal was to create a painting with lots of detail and depth to it. I wanted this to show specifically every aspect of the mother and baby mallard ducks, and also realistically incorporate the correct placement and colors of the light, and the habitat they were in. For this project, I used acrylic paint on a canvas. This was hard at times because of the texture of the canvas when I wanted to get small details, but I learned to thin out the paint so it would go into the groves better. I work best off of references so I used my dad's photo, and this was a great picture for the project. there was a lot that went into the process of this painting. I started off by gridding out my references to get all the proportions right, then I worked on each aspect of the panting like the trees, water, and the ducks themselves. Some things were harder than others, for example, I restarted the water about 5 times, and I did the mother duck in 40 minutes. This project was hard, but a good challenge.