Duck Stamp

Artist Statement:

This piece was made for the Maine Junior Duck Stamp competition. For it, I had to choose a duck from the native species list provided and then draw it with whatever materials I wanted.

For materials I decided to go with purely graphite pencil mainly because the duck itself, when female, only has blacks, whites, and grays. I also used some blending stumps to smooth out the pencil.

I started by going out and taking some of my own photos for my own references as well as to decide what species I was going to do. My photo is the one in the top left but unfortunatly I didn't get enough detail in my images so I had to pull a reference from the internet which is the image in the bottom left (the link is on the image). After I gathered my references, I started by sketching out the duck and shading it in. I then moved onto the water, which looks much better in person than in the picture I might add, and then finished with the trees and reeds in the background, and by that time I was sort of fed up with the piece because I had already spent four to five hours on it that day. If I were to go back and change anything it woukd be to work on the background more and but some highlights in the water.