Oh why didn’t I title this one March Hare when I had the chance? Too late now … it’s up on Etsy and ready for your coloring enjoyment!
I spent about 12 hours on this illustration from rough sketch to finished black and white line drawing and it was an enjoyable piece to work on … though all the curls and leaves of the fiddle-head ferns caused my hands to cramp up last night. Oh to be young again with better eyesight, too. My glasses are getting a little loose and I am tired of continually pushing them back up my nose.
I was thinking about the Easter bunny the other day and how rotten it is that I lied to my daughter about the Easter Bunny (and Santa for that matter) yet try to teach her that lying is wrong. What’s wrong with that picture? At any rate, I’ve been wanting to draw fiddle-head ferns and thought this would make a good composition for a coloring page – Easter and Spring themed without the plastic eggs and candy.
I started to color the illustration in (partly to test out the design but also to have a partially colored piece to show in my Etsy listing) and used a base layer of Caran d’Ache Museum, Faber-Castell Albrect Durer, and Staedtler Aquarelle (though mine are very old) watercolor pencils. I blended with a water brush, and then once it dried, started refining and blending with layers of colored pencils (mostly the same brands plus Prismacolor and Irojiten pencils). I also hit it with a few dabs of Sakura Souffle gel pens. It will be a while before this one is done – too much on my plate to play – but it was fun to get a start on it. And this rabbit’s face just makes me giggle.
