Green Wing Teal, Acrylic
Green winged teals swimming, sketch
About the illustration:
At some point during the illustration of the green winged teal in flight, I was not sure if I was improving the piece or going backwards. I began to scan it every several hours to have something to compare to. Here are the results of the scans, below, to show the process. (Things definitely do not always move forward!)
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 Began to lighten the horizon so as to make the duck's head stand out. It was getting lost in the horizon. Still working on the confluence but I didn't like how it began to look like land here, rather than a body of water. |
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Further definition of second bird. Tried warmer colors in first bird with cooler colors in farmland. Began to put in a slight silhouette of the bird, a lighter line around the bird to set it off from the background. |
Attempted to bring more contrast between head of first bird and horizon line. Made second bird warmer in color (which I would eventually undo). |
 This would be where the drawing feels like it's going backwards! I think I was aiming for lightening the beak and head. |
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 (Or at this point...) |
 Here I was looking at how more brightness in the background would affect the composition. |
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 Still generally playing with colors... |
 And took the colors out, for the most part. I tackled the water here, gave up on the muddy water and just added reflective quality. |
 This is more or less the final piece. I added the foot, which I should have done earlier so that it wouldn't become something I was avoiding! Fleshed out the farmland a bit more on the right and decided to call it "done". |
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At this point, I had already worked out the composition. I was trying to show the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. The muddy Missouri causes the Mississippi to be muddy from this point South. 
More work here on the confluence as well as some work on the horizon.
Worked on the bird's head to bring in more of a sense of mass. Began to put lighter color in the Mississippi (on the right), which helped to lighten the image overall. Added reflection back into water on Missouri side (the river on the left) and moved it back to blue. 
Brightened the background. Added the third bird, which I eventually took out but wish I had left it in! Began to define the second bird and set it off from the farmland behind it. Worked on first bird's tailfeathers and established more definition and color in wings. 
