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Watercolour hares
My rogues gallery of watercolour hares: hares with moons, bees, steely looks, and huge grins.
My latest watercolour hare
I finally finished him as he was feeling more than a little nervous still taped down to my hardboard next to Mr Fox who was already finished and ready to run!!
Thanks to Instagram photographer Graham P Bannister - @grahampbannisterphotography - for his generosity in allowing artists to use his wonderful wildlife photos as inspiration and reference material.
Hares and moons
There is something isn't there that just seems naturally right about hares having a whole moon of their own. The combination is one of my favourites to paint. Especially on a grand scale.
Don't tell me you love me. This time it won't cut it.
You can see how she came to life, step by step, on a 50cm by 70 cm sheet of watercolour paper here: hare art.
Nobody's fool
Find out how he developed from pencil drawing to finished painting and how he got his name here - hare painting.
I painted this loose watercolour hare and her moon with my watercolour students. I wanted them to have some fun with what they had already learnt: painting wet into wet, charging in colours and letting the pigments do their thing and mix on the paper; splashing and flicking pigment onto wet and onto dry; using masking fluid for some of the hare's whiskers.
And something new. Painting the hare's fur with the other end of their brush!
Old man hare
"Of stars and earth,
Old man hare had seen it all.
One night bathed in moon,
He caught man's eye,
And told his truth."
Poem by Donna Stiles.
It was the look in the eye of this hare that made me want to paint him and compose the poem to convey what I read in his gaze. Anger at what man has and is doing to this planet of ours.
He is one of my keep forever early hares and is a large watercolour on a sheet of around 45cm by 65cm.
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Don't even think of crash landing on me!
This watercolour hare and bee are painted on Fabriano Torchon Extra Rough 25% Cotton 300g/m² 140lb watercolour paper (also known as Studio watercolour paper), which has a soft textured surface that allows pigments to mingle in wonderful ways.
The pigments that I predominantly I use in all of my paintings are from the Van Gogh range made by Royal Talens.
Mr Smiley!
I hope you are having a day that makes you grin like this hare, happy with his world :)
I didn't plan to paint him with a huge smile: in fact, my pencil drawing study has him looking regal and statesmanly. But, as is the way when I am in the early throes of a watercolour painting, things have a habit to happen all on their own! In this case I touched the paper with a mix of blue and oxide red for his mouth and it spread out all on it's own into a wonderful grin.
That made me smile back. There was no way I was going to lift that off the paper.
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