Marsh Cattail Wren Duck Feather study #2, mallard speculum wing feather
I expect that many creative people ask themselves this question, “Shall I pursue new ideas or refine old ones?” I have sketched several hundred ideas for carved feathers in a my journals. Only a fifth of them have been used to create my art. The rest of the sketches sit in my journal. I rarely refer to the older drawings. In December, I told myself that I would, so I marked a few promising looking older sketches and picked one to pursue. After I created one, it fostered other ideas that used that same concept. Today I made the 12th piece, three larger pieces and nine small studies, the latest is pictured here. I have not had time to even look at the other drawings in my journal.
Many of the pieces in a series like this are creative refinements of the original which I find quite worthwhile to make. However, this is one reason why it is hard to create something from every sketch if the act of following one idea leads to another which leads to another and so on.
Male mallard secondary wing feathers are called speculum feathers. I don't know why for certain but it is likely because the blue portions are reflective, the structurally formed blues reflect the light sort of like a mirror. Besides the lovely shine, I thought they had a vague cattail shape to them. Plus, ducks like wet places next to cattails.