Today is just one of those days that I really need to be outside drawing. Sadly…I can’t. But I can admire other artists who can get out of their cubicles today.
Meet Mieke Roth.
She’s a professional science illustrator who also raises chickens. And for the past 68 days, with the help of Painter and her Cintiq, she’s been drawing one chicken every of it’s life. It’s such a simple idea, by powerful at the same time. It’s hard not to get attached to this little chicken as you watch it grow one day at a time. Really cool, and really inspiring.
A few weeks ago a hen I own started, for the second time this year and way too late, to sit on some eggs. Although she is a good breeder, for young pullets she is disastrous. Of the last nest only 3 survived the first two days because the hen has the annoying habit to shuffle the complete interior of the nest upside down… all day. A bit too enthusiastic! So, this time none of the first pullets survived, but still some eggs had to come out. All those eggs went into a breeding machine and October 17 the first pullet hedged.
I started a project that sat in my mind for a long time: to draw, in pen and ink, one chicken growing up every day, at least for the first two or tree months. Since this is undoable if I work like I do for my other pen and ink drawings, I have given myself a maximum amount of time I can spend on it: one hour. I don’t use real pen and ink, but the pen and ink equivalent in Painter combined with my Cintiq.
A nice surprise is that I don’t know how this specific chicken will turn out: it is a third generation crossbreed of my Breda fowl and Silki Bantams.
…maybe I will cut out a little early and head down to the park to draw after all.