Duck Stamp

This project is geared for the Maine junior Duck Stamp competition. I wanted to do Mallards, because they are all over the world, and I really love seeing them off of my grandma's dock in the Netherlands. I had several ideas for composition, but in the end I chose this one. It shows two ducks preening, indicating that there is some feather loss going on. With this in mind, I decided to do the background as an early fall scene, when Mallards are just starting their synchronous molting. 

I initially used sharpie pen for the outline, making it pretty detailed, because I know that I wanted to put some sort of color over it. I was then torn between using colored pencil, or marker. I ended up using marker, because I wanted a saturated wash, without risking the grainy texture of colored pencil. I particularly like how the maker made the water more watery, which is good for realistic drawing. I ended up using white gel pen on top of the marker, the give the highlights some more contrast.

My process included a lot of research. A very big part of my process was researching Mallards, their eating habits, their migration habits, their preening habits, and so on. I then had to find two pictures that I could combine into a unique composition, something that took a lot of searching. Once I had those pictures, I was able to copy them realistically, and make up a background for them. I ended up making some mistakes with background I think, I feel like I could have made it more realistic looking.