Duck Stamp

Emperor Geese

Black Micron Pen

9" x 12"

Artist Statement

This piece was made for the Maine Junior Duck Stamp competition, in which a species of water fowl is chosen and accurately drawn in order to raise awareness and preserve wildlife. I chose the species Emperor Goose, and using several reference images, both of the goose flying, swimming, and standing, drew my own image.

For this piece, I did several sketches that were based off of several of the references I picked out so that when approaching the final paper I simply had to transfer my sketch before layering with pen. I decided to use pen as I not only enjoy working with the medium, but also found that the Emperor goose varies little in color, mainly being black, gray, white, and coloring on the feet and bill, so pen worked fairly well, especially using a fine tip 01 Micron, which allowed me to go into a lot of detail, as well as allowed crosshatching and scribbling to build shadows without creating messy lines.

The sketching, researching, and revising process began prior to starting on my final paper, as I set out to have the forms of the geese and general composition set before really starting. These sketches were based on the various references I collected and allowed me to find a unique movement of the geese without directly copying another work. Different techniques of pen work developed as I worked on the actual drawing, mostly just experimenting with what sort of strokes created a look closest to an actual Emperor goose feather. Especially work on such small details it was crucial to find a way to show differences in color on the actual goose by varying pressure and saturation of the ink.

By conserving habitat for wildlife,