Duck Stamp

The main thing that guided me to choose the bufflehead duck was the vibrant iridescent colors on the male's large head. I also thought that though I didn't choose the females bufflehead I love how they had a little white patch on their cheek, but the reason I chose the male over the female was that the large size of the male head looked like it was like blonde up and it added something cool to the duck that other ducks I looked at didn't have.

I used charcoal and colored chalk pastels to create this art piece. I used black and white charcoal pencils on the duck to add smaller details and I used black and white charcoal sticks for the big shading part which was the water, then I also went back to using the white charcoal pencil to add detail to the waves. Throughout the process, I also used a tortillion for branding and a charcoal cloth for blending as well. I also added the bright iridescent colors on the duck’s head with chalk pastels and tinted the water blue with chalk pastels as well.

Before I chose the bufflehead duck I looked into a few other ducks. I knew that I wanted to do a sea duck and while looking through all the different sea ducks the bufflehead stood out amongst the others through research I found out that the bufflehead duck isn't always a sea duck but during certain seasons they are and I chose to draw my bufflehead duck in its saltwater habitat.