duck stamp

I was going to choose a species of duck that would be less detailed/easier than the Northern Pintail but I decided to challenge myself and draw these ducks. I was also only planning to draw one duck, but it didn't seem like it would show the variety of the species quite enough so I added a few more. I wanted to show the ducklings from a couple of angles so you can fully see one pointing each direction. There are a couple things that could have used more time/work put into them and a couple things I would change entirely but all in all I am pretty happy with how it came out.

I only used coloured pencils for this. It started with graphite outlines but the only material that can be seen and makes up the actual drawing is coloured pencil. I was originally going to do pen and water colour but between going back and forth from my parents' houses, the amount of time and space I had, liquid paint, and time to dry, water colour would not have been an option. I still think it would have looked better as water colour and that is one thing I would change if I were to redo it, but despite that I think coloured pencil was the next best thing.

Before I did anything on paper I looked at lots of pictures of Northern Pintail ducks of varying ages and genders. I pulled a few images for reference and then started planning on the paper. As I said, I started with simple graphite silhouettes of the ducks. This made planning the image a lot easier. Next I did what I always do with animals which is start at the highest part of them on the page, usually the top of their head, and just start adding in colour. I work my way down in chunks adding detail to each chunk, but it isn't like a grid because there are no designated sections, just wherever I add colour next. I have been told that this confuses people because they don't get how I can keep track of what I'm doing like this but it works better for me than anything else I've ever done so I just keep doing it. I also did a couple of ducks outlines and general colour mapping on another sheet of paper to see what would look best and I think that helped with the ducklings in particular. If I were to keep working on this/do it again I would probably add more of a background than I did. All of the images I found had little or no background so I just angles the image so there wasn't as much of a background on mine either but in the future I think I might spend more time trying to work in at least a little of a background.