Duck Stamp

The main idea that guided my artwork submission for the “Maine Junior Duck Stamp” was to create an art piece of a redhead duck that was slowly traveling through a calm body of water. I wanted it to be as realistic as I could make it and for it to be colorful and encourage the ability of viewers to look at my duck and pretend it is real and living. I chose a redhead duck because I like how its head is like a cinnamon rusty red color that kind of stands out amongst the rest of the grayish, blackish, brownish, monochromatic colors of its body feathers. 

The specific materials I used to create my duck stamp art piece was a piece of paper that was 9 inches by 12 in and was a horizontal composition.  I used graphite pencils to sketch out my design at first and then I used watercolor paints to lay down the base colors in sections of the duck and the reservoir of water that the duck is depicted in. After using watercolor paints I used colored pencils to add more detail in some areas for instance the eye and feather detail. Then I used chalk pastels to even out the blotchiness in the water that the watercolor paints left.

At first, I thought I wanted to do a swan maybe because it would be mostly white and cool-toned colors, but then after coming across a redhead duck in my research, I realized how cool it was and how much it drew my attention amongst the other ducks I looked at. My original thought, while I was in the process of making my duck stamp art piece, was that I would use a fair amount more of colored pencil in my art piece than I evidently ended up using as opposed to the other materials I used. I used much more watercolor paint and chalk pastel than I did colored pencils, I only used a colored pencil in a couple of small places (like the eye and beak) but originally I had thought that I would use a majority of colored pencils but I ended up using a majority of watercolor paints and chalk pastels.