Duck Stamp

The idea behind this project was to create a drawing that was as realistic as possible of a specific species of duck. I chose the majestic King Eider. I chose this duck because of it's striking colors and amazing solidity of it's feathers. It has such bright contrast on it's body and especially head it looks almost unreal. I wanted to capture that in this piece as well as make it look like it was alive and in a real habitat by adding the ducklings. I think that made the scene feel more like a moment from nature rather than just a snapshot of the duck itself.

For the final pice I used a base layer of watercolor. This just layed out the general colors for the duck, noxt I want in with colored pencil to add more depth and detail to the drawing. This unfortunately gave it a grainy texture and you could see the paper below. I had to sharpen my pencils more and continue to carefully shade every part of the duck's body.

I strated with a sketch using only colored pencil, but the grain of the paper was too visible for my liking. Si started over many times for various reason. Many were because the duck was too simple, without anything that captured one's attention, and some because the sketch of the duck simply didn't fit into the page I wanted it to. Once I got to my final piece I worked on it for a long time but got so frustrated because it was not looking how I wanted it to, that I had to take a break from it for a while. Until I was able to come back and bring it to it's highest level a couple weeks later.