Learn Acrylic Painting: Design and Illustrate a Duck

Materials:

1. Acrylic paints (Amsterdam): white, turquoise, blue, yellow, brown and red.

2. Stretched canvas 30x40cm (12x16inch)

3. Big flat brush, small flat bush,

For this first step, you will need a brown and a brush, the brown should be diluted with water. You will make the underpainting, coloring all the canvas with brown.

After the drying of the underpainting, on the top of the canvas, start to make the head of the duck, the beak, going down with the neck, and then with the body. Start to define the beak and the eye. You will learn how to make the shadow. For the legs, make two lines and continue with feet of the duck.

The painting is dried, adjust the legs and the feet. Then adjust the head and the eye, going down with the brush on the duck's body.

With some yellow, red and brown, make a beautiful orange, and put it on the background, mix it with red, to make it more intense orange.

The background is dried, now with some yellow and white, with the corner of the brush make some nice shapes, covering the orange, but not entirely ! Play with the brush, making some stains of yellow on the top of the background.

Continuing, add some blue and yellow, make a green and start to add it on lower the part of the yellow. Going down with the brush, add the green on the bottom part of the canvas. Add some white with blue and green, and paint the lower part of the background. Add more white, mix it with blue, and continue to put in on the lower part of the background. With a dark green, cover the part under the duck.

As usual, the painting was left to dry, and now on a clean pallete put some white, blue, red and yellow. Now start to add another layer of yellow on the top side of the canvas. Mix some white and blue for making a green and go around the duck with it. Take more blue and make it more intense with white and add it on the previous layer of paint. With more white, make a lighter blue and spread it above the duck. With more lighter yellow, add another layer of color around the duck. You will put some more green and little bit of red.

With some blue, brown, white and red mixed, add it to the top of the neck, going down with the brush and start to cover the right side of the duck, then the left side, and the beak too. You will leave, on the left side of the duck an uncovered place.  This will be the shadow of the duck.

For this step, you will have a clean pallet with red ,blue and white . With the small flat brush, mix white and blue and add it from the top of the head till the body, making it look like some blue feathers. Combine the color with red to make a purple and continue to spread the color. Don't cover the shadow !

Make an orange, and with the small flat brush, start from the beak going down on the left side of the duck, and then going onto the right side, cover it with that orange, yellow and a little bit of green. This is for creating the impression of light.

With some white and blue, start from the top of the head, add small lines like feathers. Continue to go down with that color over that dark part you've created before. On the bottom part, you will put some green and yellow and pink. Add another layer of light blue on the right side of the duck.

Take some white, mix it with yellow, and continue to add the color on the left side of the duck. Add another layer of light yellow on the left side. Next, make an orange and put it on the legs of the duck. Also, with the same orange color the beak. Mix some blue and red and start to put it under the beak and contour the eye.

You will start to put some white and yellow, to cover the duck. Continue by adding some purple and orange. Put some green at the bottom of the duck and on the background, to represent the grass. Then you will start to adjust the legs. 

Mix white and blue, and put it on the top of the canvas, creating the reflection of the sky on the grass from the distance, making some depth. On the bottom part, you will add some light green. Put a white and yellow dot on the beak, for the lightning. For the eye, you will put a white little dot.

In this final step, you will adjust what you want, maybe by adding some more color.  I hope you had a lot of fun taking this course !