Duck Stamp, Continued

I've begun to work on the Scaup now. The head and upper body were done with a mixture of ultramarine blue and burnt umber instead of pure black, but since I haven't devoted much time to that area it still looks very flat and dead (there's some glare on the head so it looks even flatter)


I went on to mix up a variety of blues and blue-grays for the skin tones on the feet, which were lots of fun to paint--especially when I got to adding all the little spots. Mom said they were cute.


As I was editing these photos I realized that I kind of messed up the bill. It's far too chunky at the base. But that's an easy fix when I get there.

Overall the painting definitely needs to be warmed up. As the old artist's rule of thumb goes, warm colors advance, cool colors recede, and without that color contrast I'll lose a lot of important depth and impact in this piece. (Thanks Adam for this tip!) Reviewing many of the adult artists entries--as well as the winning Jr. paintings--I found that most of them used a predominantly warm palette as well. Keep in mind that the color in the photos I'm posting isn't always completely accurate.