Draw What You See....See What You Draw

I blew the dust off of the art pencil box, found some charcoal, chalk, conte and newsprint and started...

This is the first round of drawings.  It is obvious that it has been a while since I have taken pen to paper to draw.

Later the same day, this emerged as the second round of drawings.  Observations are being noted on each for future reference.

After some evaluation, this pose caught my eye as being the most pleasant and I refined and developed it more.

Front view of the same pose.  I am really liking this pose a lot.  It has lots of "s"curves and the hen especially is very princess like in her appearance.  Most carvers carve then too large and clunky as opposed to sleek and graceful.

I then modified the pose slightly for the drake so he would have a different pose from the hen and so that his pose would accent his bull like features and puffy , fluffy, downy looking side feathers.  

 This combination is making a nice looking pair in harmony. So time to record observations and move to the quickly carved bird...ladies first.

Here are some of the observations of the key physical features of the hen.

1. unique shape to head profile that is peaked at the center top and puffy at the back
2. long sloping thin and slender bill
3. neck that is wider than the cheeks  when relaxed...opposite from almost every other duck.
4. short wings for the size of the duck ...more so on the hen.
5. in b&w, the exposed wing seems to add more range of color value to the bird than a tucked wing and it accents the sleekness of the bird while making the short wings appear longer.
6. nice  large "s" curved tertial feathers on both sexes that need to be accentuated.
7. large(ish) rump in height and girth.
8. beautiful almond shaped eyes especially on the hen...when done well on a carving, and with carving and paint done to draw the viewer to the eye, you might be able to actually see into the soul of this bird which will really bring it to life.
9. the breasts on Canvasbacks are much smaller than you would think for the size of the bird and certainly smaller than those of the Redhead.  Most carvers get this wrong!
10, the neck is quite long and when the head is pulled back or tucked, the the head looks much longer because of the vertebrae of the neck accumulating and piling up.