How to Draw a Chicken

by Jean-Vincent Sénac

Overview

Anyone can draw a chicken, right? Follow Jean-Vincent Sénac’s attempts to draw one as he has to contend with runaway beaks, sleeping eggs, and hungry hens. The entertaining characters and witty text in this book of simple outline drawings, much like a flip-book, will charm readers of all ages and encourage children and adults alike to draw with humor and imagination.
Illustrated throughout in Sénac’s unique style, this little book will encourage drawing while making readers laugh out loud.

Praise for How to Draw a Chicken
"The attractive, square, flip-book format belies the surreal execution of the concept."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Humorous small-format drawing guide."
—Publishers Weekly

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781849760683
Publisher:	Tate Publishing
Publication date:	10/29/2013
Pages:	72
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 5.60(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Jean-Vincent Sénac is an illustrator based in France. He has produced books, flip-books, and toys, and runs art workshops for children.

Editorial Reviews

09/23/2013
The cover of this humorous small-format drawing guide suggests that its original title was How to Draw Animals. However, the word “animals” has been crossed out and replaced with “a chicken,” a downgrade that reflects just how much trouble the chickens in the book give French illustrator Sénac. Instructions on chicken-drawing are handwritten in cursive on blank white pages, with black line drawings taking shape below. Things begin well (“draw a triangle”) but quickly go south when Sénac draws a pair of legs attached to a beak. “What about the body?” asks the malformed chicken, who runs away before Sénac can add one. The artist fares better on his second attempt (though that bird never gets a beak or feet), and his frustrated interactions with the drawings are quite funny, though the story devolves when another bird wanders onto the scene, a baby chick appears to manifest from an egg’s dream, cockerels are attempted, and a bird spontaneously deflates. Even Sénac can’t quite figure out how to wrap it up, opting for a “well, I’ve got to go but please carry on.” Ages 5–up. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

2013-10-01
This book might as well be titled How Not to Draw a Chicken. The cover, which substitutes "a Chicken" for a crossed-out "Animals," gives fair warning of the strangeness inside. Beginning like a traditional how-to book, the handwritten instructions become increasingly bizarre--almost absent-minded. In a series of line drawings, a beak is drawn and joined to a pair of legs, but the body is forgotten; the beak-on-legs creation then runs away while the rest of the chicken body is drawn. The body, neck and wings are completed in a haphazard fashion, and although the beak on legs returns, it is never joined to the rest of the body. Another chicken (a whole one) runs up to observe, even as the narrative instructs readers to draw an egg and add eyes and legs to it. Finally, after a few false starts, a "cockerel" (this is a British import) is drawn correctly. The attractive, square, flip-book format belies the surreal execution of the concept, but it's possible to see how the deliberately incompetent drawings might inspire creative children to use the elements--beak, legs, feet, wings, eyes, cockerel's crest ("it's a bit like a floppy crown or a glove with six fingers")--to create their own silly animals. Minimalist silliness that may be more art than substance. (Picture book. 5-12)

Kirkus Reviews