Painting a hare, step by step. Mim messily eats rodents.

As this blog was meant to actually be about painting, but has been Hijacked by hairy fiends, I thought I'd redress the balance. I know this will come as a disappointment to most, as cats are clearly the priority, but more of them later.
In major news, I have been fast tracked onto the business start up scheme! I start the short course and getting a business plan done, starting monday. It's all happened very fast, and I am both excited and pant poopingly frightened.
For now though.........  A hare, in pieces. Not hit-by-a-land-mine pieces, but in thin non bacon slices.

First of all, you have to sketch the beasty, using a photo or digital image as reference material <unless you have an eidetic mind, which lets face it, I don't>   For this picture I used a composite of digital images. You can use a "wire frame" style of initial geometric shapes if you feel the need, but I like hares and am familiar with them <but not in a witchy way,> so i could block all the elements together without much fuss.

Next I tend to block in major colour elements of the painting. In this case the legs, haunches, and some of the fur are a lighter tone, or different texture from the rougher back fur so I highlighted them with a wash. I then made some coffee, and played Battlestar Galactica online for a while, and stretched my back

Coffee break over I made a darker wash for the other fur areas, applied it and then blended with a water pen and left to dry. This enabled me to make dinner.

Dinner having been eaten, and more coffee <working juice>, I moved on to adding some of the darker tones to the piece, and blending them with the water pen whilst listening to Nightwish. The opeatic metal isn't a necessity, but I like it.Using the water pen means you can push the paint around a fair bit, and remove mistakes.

Stopping to go for a pee, and then losing my favourite brush <it was in my hair -  the brush, not my pee>, I carried on, adding the grey tones to the ears and haunches, and starting to put in details, like claws, leg tendonns and a scary demonic orange blob for an eye. More swearing, sore back, Add coffee and pain killers.

Next I finished the eye, using paint neat from the tube, as the more concentrated pigments I find easier to do tiny details with and they are brighter, I also added definition and shading to the ears, limbs, tail, and back.

Heres a close up of the face. I also added an yellow ring around the pupil, to try and capture the hares inherent "screw you" attitude. If you have ever seen a live one close up, you will know what I mean. Add more coffee, watch Mim noisily devour a mouse.

Finally, having touched up some more shading, I used a watercolour pencil to add the whiskers, and a medium/thin wash, with a fan brush, to apply the fur detail.


So there you have it. One brown hare, running like the Queen of pain herself was after it.
Speaking of which, her is her ladyship messily nomming a mouse that was stupid enough to exist.

Om nom no...oi oi oi oi!