Hare as Herald for Spring

Time in the studio has been passing by quickly, a bit like the start of this year which seems to have disappeared. The top brown hare is my Herald of Spring,  and below is the Blue Hare of Winter beating a hasty retreat....I suspect we will have a few more days of snow before winter is over though! Last Saturday was spent in the mountains at Lochnagar. It was a beautiful day matched by the wild life we saw-  woodpecker, red grouse, black cock, buzzard, short eared owl, hen harrier and two golden eagles plus both red and roe deer.  Fabulous!

WINTER HARES

I have finally got down to doing some new pieces for etsy

and thought it might be nice to do some ACEOs.

I've been meaning to draw more hares
 and spied some mountain hares at the weekend while hill walking.

They don various shades of grey & brown and turn white for winter

Some of them are half way to turning white
 and others are already there.

We sometimes call them blue hares-
 for the beautiful shades of their coats.

I've done a series of four at different stages of their winter change,

hope you like!

I took some photos of the process....

I'm working on a very smooth watercolour paper

Step1- a quick pencil sketch

Step2- drawing with a dip pen in Indian ink,

 mistakes still optional!

Step 3-Add light washes of acrylic ink, small changes can still be made and final details picked out with the dip pen.  

The finished article!.

 I will be posting these in Imogens Attic on etsy later this evening.