Duck Stamp 

The main idea that started this artwork was the duck stamp commotion held in America. The premise of this competition is to draw a North American duck, there were a few exceptions like swans native to North America. Personally, I chose to draw a trumpeter swan because of one of my favorite childhood books The Trumpet of the Swan, in which the main character is a mute trumpeter swan who lerns to communicate through playing a trumpet. I mostly drew the swan based on a reference image but the biggest aspect that I changed was the color of the lake, I changed it to blue not only because that is a more common lake color but also because it matches the cover of the book, which overall is more cool toned, unlike the yellow and green toned reference image. Something that I wicked I had done differently with this piece of work is use more reference images to create a more unique pose for the swan to be in, the end result looks a littel to much like one of the reference images even though I tried to use others to get a better sense of what the swan should look like and for painting the water. 

The primary material that I used for this painting was gouache, a completely new medium for me. I decided I wanted to try out gouache because it is a martial that I've sean hear and there on social media and thought "hey that looks easy enough". After some experimenting, I found that sentiment was very very wrong. There are aspects of it that I like, it is very pigmented, has good coverage but can still be diluted with water, it blends together well, and isn't as permanent as acrylic yet still as bold. However, I found it hard to work with, expressly considering I don't have much experience with any painting materials. Overall it's something I do want to practice with more because of the great qualities  listed, I just want to be better with it and that takes time. 

The very first thing I did during this project was research the trumpeter swan. What kind of habitat does it live in? Do they migrate? Difference between males and females? What do they eat? and so on. Next, I drew thumbnail sketches of what I wanted to paint. The first one was actually an abstract drawing of a swan made out of shapes, I drew this before  I realized that we were trying to make our drawing as photo-realistic as possible. For the second sketch I used the reference image of the swan flying, however, I though the pose was a bit complicated for my first time using a new material,  that why I opted to go with my third and final sketch. It was fairly simple in design but had interest because  of the background  and trumpeter swan chicks. Before I when in with guache for the final piece I experimented with the medium and ended up creating a chaotic sketch page that contained drawings of multiple eyeballs similar to the abstraction project I did earlier in the semester, I also drew a forest scene I relly liked a few yellow flowers. After that, I just followed my references for the final piece. 

Refrences: 

Experiments with gouache: