EDM 242 - Draw a tzatchke

These ceramic chickens belong to my mother, and to my childhood. They have been there forever. Several years ago, my parents moved from a 3 bedroom split level house to a one bedroom condo. The downsizing was ruthless to say the least, yet somehow these chickens ended up in the new condo. When I decided to draw them, I asked my mom about them. Obviously, they had a place in her heart and meant a great deal to her. I sensed a story. She told me that she had finished normal school and got her first teaching job. For the first time in her life, she had more money than she needed. She had enough money to feed, clothe and house herself and some left over. Money left over that she could buy something for no other reason than that she wanted to. One day she passed a store, and saw these chickens in the window. She went in and bought them, for no other reason than that she could and she liked them. An impulse buy, a silly purchase. But nearly sixty years later, she still likes these chickens. And isn't that really the definition of "tzatchke"?

Pentel pen and watercolor pencil in the Robert Bateman sketchbook