23 to draw poultry

december 2007

150mm x 197mm

6 pages, wrapper

Reading Isabella Beeton's instructions on how to draw poultry I wondered how easily her words could be followed today with instructions such as cut off the pinions, take out the crop and make a deep straight cut across the body between the tail and the vent. I decided there was some fun to be had with this. So, the first method in this book is Beeton's own. The remaining three are anagrams of this first method, and whose instructions veer between probable, improbable and downright impossible. However, because the vocabulary of the three pieces is entirely Beeton's, they have a straightforward conviction of command that lends their incomprehensibility a bewildering clarity. The illustrations that accompanied the original instructions have been similarly treated. Now, scrape the skin pinions...