Artist Statement:

For this project, we had to make a detailed and realistic drawing of a duck. I chose to do the Male of the Northern Pintail duck. We had to research how this duck lives. Such as its habitat, eating habits, and the color changes of feathers throughout the year, the age, and the gender. I had to look at the way the feathers grow from the duck and how to draw the colors without it looking like a cartoon. The most important part of this project was making sure to pay to details. Part of the competition was to make it as scientifically correct as possible. For example, if I was drawing a brown duck it should not actually be black and white in person. In the end, I made sure to try and add an environment for the duck as well. Such as water, reeds, and cattails. These are realistic parts of the Northern Pintail duck.

The materials I used for this project were pretty basic. I started sketching my design with a 2h graphite pencil on 12in. by 9in. watercolor paper. I chose to do watercolor paper because I knew it was thick and it was good if I did end up deciding to add watercolors. The main material I ended up using though was the colored pencils. The colored pencils were used for making details and the whole of the design all together. They were soft and great for blending.

For this project the process was a lot of back and forth between the image of reference, research, and my drawing. I had to make sure I was getting it as scientifically correct as possible so it was important that I made sure to include all the right details. For example the habitat that I drew the duck in had to be the correct location for the Northern pintail duck. So they generally live near lakes with cattails which I added into the background. The research was a big part of this project and it was interesting to learn about the duck itself.