Dawn is imminent and John the rooster, with the aid of a cup of coffee, is mid rooster rehearsal in preparation for his big début. If only he can recall the words.

This was an idea I had in the wee hours of the morning when sleep alluded me. I wrote a note about it so that I wouldn’t forget it a few hours later. This was a lesson learned recently after a similar case where I didn’t write down an idea and I still can’t remember what it was that I thought was good.

I’m not saying the rooster rehearsal idea is good. I just liked the thought of roosters, when crowing for the first time, needing to practise their line in order to get it right.

This drawing was done fairly quickly. I didn’t spend as much time refining it, which probably shows. I’ve also given it a splash of colour to better indicate that it’s night time. It’s still only flat colour at this stage. I may come back to it and shade it a later time, giving him some moonlight highlights.

I also had fun coming up with alternative nonsense phrases the rooster was considering and tried to group similar concepts together, such as food, animals, letters of the Greek alphabet, etc.

For some reason, the rooster is called John. It’s pretty much the first name I thought of and it stuck. In retrospect, he may have been better suited with a name beginning with ‘R’, such as Rodney or Richard.