Rooster Boost

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Picasso’s great charcoal drawing of a rooster has long been a favourite picture of mine. 

 

 

Recently, when teaching an art programme, the rooster picture made a frequent return as a suggested practice piece for students. I couldn’t resist revisiting it, basing it on a quick picture I’d taken of a grand looking bird a few years back.

 

I started with a traditional enough painting, one which also turned into an interesting lesson. 

 

This, though, was just the prompt to go further into exploring the form. The first few pieces were bolder with colour and flatter in form, but I felt I could be pushing things a bit more.

Cockerel Study 2 Cockerel Study 3

The next two pictures felt as though they were getting somewhere, pretty arbitrary colouring throughout along with some extended patterning.

Cockerel Study 4

Cockerel Study

Often, when a bit of clarity is needed, it’s as well to reach for a pencil. I already had a clear enough feel for the colouring, it was just that a bit of attention was needed to the details. The pencil study mapped out the form much more clearly, enough to make a start on a bigger piece.

Cockerel Study 6 in Penci

As I was into a progressive approach with the picture, I decided to divide it into quarters and work on each one exclusively of the others. I wanted to ‘ring-fence’ off each painting, making the finished piece a completely independent picture. The risk would be that the finished work might not hang together so well, but there would also be an intensity to each individual section. So, here are the sections…and the finished picture. I’m quite pleased with it, and hope it’s got a small bit of the bird’s marvellous vitality.

Bird Study 1

Bird Study 2

Bird  Study 3

Bird Study 4

The four paintings aligned –

Rooster in Four Sections