30SAL Challenge: Chanticleer

Hey Artists! For the first day of our creative challenge, the suggestion was blind contour self portraits. As of 10pm Jan 1, there are 100 scribble-fabulous self portrait posts on Instagram with the #30SAL. How exciting! Now here’s your second….

Barbara Cooney

Barbara Cooney (August 6, 1917 – March 10, 2000) was an American writer and illustrator of 110 children’s books, published over sixty years. She received two Caldecott Medals for her work on Chanticleer and the Fox (1958) and Ox-Cart Man (1979), and a National Book Award for Miss Rumphius (1982). Below are a few of her lovely illustrations.

Take a look at the illustration of the trees and hills above. It has some elements in common with the Chanticleer that is your challenge for today. Notice how Cooney uses form, pattern, motif, rhythm, and repetition in her compositions. Basically, she simplified her shapes, repeated them in slightly varied ways, and edited out all the other stuff. See how the branched trees mimic the shape of the hills? Similarly, the shape of the whole bird mimics the bird’s wing and chest shapes, which mimic the shape of the details inside it, each section clean and distinct. Big smooth simple shapes set the background, thin linear shapes repeat their curves but different on top of the big shapes to form rhythm, then a few dots of humans and thingy bits sit on top like sprinkles. That’s a nice balance of three different pattern elements. Give it a try? This is not a requirement, just an idea. If you are new at this, pick an easy path. Play! Doodle! You can draw from your head or find a picture of a rooster to modify. You might find it takes a few quick little sketches to figure out what your repeated motifs are going to be, and a few more sketches to edit out all the other shapes and marks that keep sneaking in to clutter things up, but this editing and refining work is a worthwhile practice for your art skills. See if you can get three distinctly different elements in your creation: big simple shapes, medium sized repeats, itty bitty details.

#30SAL Challenge: Chanticleer

Today’s creative challenge is a vocabulary word.
Chanticleer: a rooster in a fairy tale

Set the timer for 20 minutes. Materials are artist’s choice.

Remember, this is not a drawing challenge, it’s a creative challenge. Responses can be in any media. You are invited to draw, paint, print, fold, cut, sew, wire, carve, sculpt your food, anything you want! If you put in 20 minutes of creative time, no matter what happens, that’s a win.

New tags

When you’re finished with your session, post your project with our new shorter tag: #30SAL This will make it so we can find your project online.

Instagram allows 30 tags per post. The more tags you include, the more viewers you’ll have for yourself and for all of us. If you want to, you can copy and paste these 30 tags to each one of your posts. You can add tags of your own of course, but because of the 30 limit, you’ll need to delete one for every one you add. Once you have a list you like, you can save it on your phone and cut/paste into every post.

#drawingchallenge #drawing #art #illustration #sketch #artchallenge #drawings #artist #draw #artistsoninstagram #sketchbook #instaart #drawthisinyourstyle #artwork #drawingoftheday #dailydrawing #drawingtutorial #inkdrawing #drawingsketch #artoftheday #myart #pencildrawing #drawthisinyourstylechallenge #creativity #creativechallenge #designchallenge #mixedmedia #artistlife #artjournal #seattleartistleague

(#bhfyp stands for “best hashtag for your post”)