Duck Stamp

For this assignment we had to draw a duck for the duck stamp competition. I decided to draw the canvasback duck out of the selection of ducks we had to choose from. I decided to choose this duck because I thought it looked the best and I thought it would be hard but not too hard to draw. I looked at pictures of the canvasback and its environment and decided to draw it in flight with a sky and water background. I decided to do this because I made a few sketches of what I thought would be good and this was the one I liked the most.

The materials I used were graphite and colored pencil. I sketched with the graphite and then went over the sketches with colored pencil on bristol paper so the colored pencil could burnish. I decided to use these materials because I felt as though this would give the most detail out of the other materials I could use, such as marker or paint. Also, colored pencil looks better in this style than paint could, and also I couldn't paint a very good looking drawing with paint.

This work was made in a pretty simple process. I had to research different positions of the duck to figure out how I wanted to draw it, because I could not copy a drawing so I had to combine a few different examples so it could be an original. I used graphite to sketch the duck and the water and skylines I would use, then I went over the background and made the water by burnishing a light blue colored pencil then a darker one over that. I drew the duck next then I finished off with drawing the sky in a similar manner as the water. I used a dark blue then went over it in a bit of purple and white everywhere I didn't do purple.