brown hares

Avid readers of my blog will remember my post about a hare I saw at the end of last year, so I was excited to join the session on these enigmatic lagomorphs with yup, Wild Life Drawing. As a self-employed person it’s so wonderful to let someone else decide what we’re doing and sort out all the details, and as I would like to expand my range of illustration skills to wildlife beyond birds, I feel it’s a good form of continued professional development.

We were joined by a hare enthusiast working with PTES who was able to tell us lots of interesting things he’d learnt while studying them in Yorkshire. I am quite familiar with them and so it was more of a recap of information rather than anything brand new, but in these difficult times of geopolitical chaos and disruption, spending time in community is especially important, and the vibes are always so wholesome and inclusive during these online sessions – and we raised £220 for PTES.

I wanted to try an ink drawing of a hare, and also to endeavour to capture some of the sense of watchfulness and restlessness (that’s a lot of s’s) that hares have about their demeanour. They don’t use burrows, so spend much of their time in the open, and perhaps their prominent eyes and huge ears give off the vulnerability and exposure of a prey species more so than say, rabbits, which can at least retreat to the safety of the earth. They also have a wiry, angular look about them, even as youngsters (leverets are born in the open), which is in stark contrast to the fluffy bunny imagery we are so used to.

I used my Pilot Parallel pen with what I thought was brown ink but it turned out to be blue. Never mind. This is in my Fabriano Venezia which does take the ink really well.