Duck Stamp

A few months ago, I discovered the Federal Junior Duck Stamp Program, an art contest designed to encourage conservation through the arts. Here's the link-->http://www.fws.gov/duckstamps/junior/PARTICIPATE.htm. It's encouraging to see contests that encourage realism these days (the NRA youth wildlife art contest is another example). So far I've come up with a unique and fairly original design (below) which, because it's quite different from most entries I've seen, has the potential to do well. The contest is arranged so that each state holds it's own subcontest, the winner of which goes on to the national competition. Unfortunately, it looks like many states elect inexperienced judges who may judge more according to modern tastes than according to realism and all that. Anyway, I'll give it a shot. Oh, and if I can find a good way to get photos of my work-in-progress I may post some of those later.


I used Adobe Photoshop to compose my painting from several different photos. If you're into photo editing, graphic design... you need this program!! I've found Adobe's "Classroom in a Book" course to be very helpful in learning all of it's incredible features.