Maine Junior Duck Stamp

Artist's Statement:

Jillian Wight

Medsker

AP Art and Design

20 January 2021

For this project, we were given very specific guidelines: to create a photorealistic duck that would be submitted to the Maine Junior Duck Stamp competition. Photorealism is always a challenge for me, because I think it’s hard to add touches of my personal style into such pieces, and therefore they don’t inspire me as much as some of my other assignments have. However, observational drawing is a great skill to practice. With this work, I tried to incorporate myself as much as possible. To do so, I chose to illustrate a mallard duck, because I have grown up around them and many of my happiest memories are centered around these beautiful birds! I really wanted to explore a unique perspective, so I drew the duck from underwater as it dives for food. I used a pen and white gel pen, which also helped me add a personal aspect to the piece.

In addition to black sharpie pens, Blick felt tip pens, and white gel pen, I added detail and color to my piece with watercolors and Dual-Brush markers.

Although my original idea was to illustrate a male mallards mating dance so that this project would correlate with my exploration of beauty, I revised this idea when inspiration struck elsewhere! I also drew upon what I remember from last year, and decided to use pen and markers rather than colored pencils to create this project. I find that colored pencils take longer, and ink is more true to my style. Finally, the water was a huge challenge for me. I think it is so hard to recreate realistically, but I did my best to effectively synthesize my materials and I’m happy with the result! Going forward, I’d like to rush this project a little less.

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