Rascal

Meet Rascal - sovereign of the backyard and probably the most amazing rooster I've ever known. Last year my mother got 3 red hens from a local breeder and he gave her a tall black youngster as a gift. Young fellow was indeed very tall, and thin, but athletic, and extremely active. He ran like an ostrich across the backyard, exploring and thoroughly enjoying the small forest we've made out of it, while the hens, still heavier and sassier than him, were pecking him like a naughty and annoying kid. He didn't really care. Then he figured how to jump over the fence and escape their pen (they can go freely in the yard, but only part of the time), and it became customary for him to wander the wide yard as he pleases, while they are still stuck in their smaller yard in the morning. Then he began to embark on even longer adventures.... during one of which he went missing for a night, but turned out he went from the field in the back and all the way around the whole row of houses and he arrived on the street in front of our house early in the morning, to sing under my family's windows to herald it's time for somebody to feed him. And once I saw him fly across half of my backyard.... he didn't make it high in the air, but he actually flew, and that's something I had never seen a chicken do before - not even while they are young and light and so full of energy. Anyway, this is how he got his name, too, while we usually don't name our chickens, he is so outstanding that I couldn't help myself.

Now months have passed, Rascal grew into a brilliant black rooster, beautiful and manly with his huge crest and dangly ornaments. He is much bigger than the hens and they know to respect him now, but he's just as crazy and active. I swear he sings more than all other roosters in the area, perhaps more than all of them combined. He is always vigilant, always doing something, I've just never seen him actually lie down to rest, he's always up to something instead. I really love the little (BIG!) guy, he's a joy for my eyes any time I'm in the backyard. And naturally, I had to draw him.


I took black paper for the art because the gloss of his feathers would definitely come out best this way, though this made the background a bit more challenging. I still like how it came out. Oh yeah, and the long tailfeathers, I took the reference photos specifically on a windy day, because he's just so cutely hilarious as he wades proudly across the yard and the longest sticking feathers flap around. I think I even managed to convey that motion.

Reference - 5 of my own photos.
Polychromos color pencils, erasers.
20 x 30 cm black paper. ~ 4 hours.


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