My mother has a rooster motif going on in her kitchen. While this sounds unoriginally rural, she has some very artful poultry among the bric-a-brac adorning the walls and lining the tops of the cabinets, including a few paintings I made her of roosters engaged in human activity. These make her laugh, and I enjoy a little comedy with my painting from time to time. I whipped out "White Zin Grin" in a couple sessions as a gift for Mom's recent birthday- a nod to both her kitchen theme, and love of sweet rosé wine made from zinfandel grapes. While I'm certainly not the first artist in the world to anthropomorphize a rooster, something felt really familiar about this one's bemused look as I began painting him. I couldn't put my finger on it until after I had hung the silly thing in her kitchen, when the realization sunk in how much he resembled Foghorn Leghorn... can't I do anything original?
