How to Paint a Picture of a Bunny
Bunny rabbits make cute subjects for paintings, especially for kid's art projects. They can be painted in a wide range of styles, from semiabstract to photorealistic. Bunny paintings are made in all media, including watercolor, gouache, acrylic and oil. Rabbits can be painted as stylized tole painted images. They can be painted alone or in a landscape. Kids like to paint them as cartoons. More serious painters depict rabbits realistically in naturalistic wildlife pictures. The most famous rabbit painting is "A Young Hare" by the German Northern Renaissance painter Albrecht Durer. Rabbit fur is difficult to represent with paint at first, but gets easier with practice.
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Things You'll Need
- Camera
- Drawing materials
- Paper
- Artist's paints
- Paintbrushes
- Canvas
- Gesso
- Sandpaper
Instructions
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Study rabbits and practice drawing them on paper. Make preparatory drawings of bunnies in real life if you have access to them. Photograph the bunny and use the pictures as references while painting. Draw and photograph them while they're asleep so they don't move around too much. If you can't draw bunnies from life, use reference pictures of them from the Internet or library books. Draw the basic shapes that make up the overall form of the bunny.
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Finish your final compositional drawing of the rabbit. Include the details of his ears, feet and tail. Make the drawing the same size as the painting so you can transfer the image onto canvas. Prepare your canvas by priming it with gesso. Use at least three coats, adding a little more water to each layer to thin it. Sand the surface smooth for the finely detailed work of the rabbit's fur. Draw your composition freehand on the canvas or trace it from your drawing.
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3
Lay down thin washes of paint in muted or gray colors for an underpainting. Establish the tonal structure of the picture with this layer of paint. Use dark tones to represent shadows around and on the rabbit. Contrast the shaded areas with the brightly lit parts of the bunny. Paint in the colors for the background surrounding the rabbit.
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Match the local color of the rabbit with your paint. Either mix the colors or paint with thin layers or glazes of color, one atop another. Represent the fur of the rabbit using short thin strokes of dark and light with a small detail brush. Paint the hairs individually if you have the time. Use a larger flat brush, splitting the hairs to make fine lines to speed up the process. Build up the texture of the bunny's fur with masses of tiny brushstrokes.
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Finish the picture by painting in the smallest details of the rabbit. Use your smallest pointed brush to paint the rabbit's toenails, whiskers and facial features. Define the "Y" shape where the bunny's nose meets his mouth. Paint in the accented highlights last. Add the catch-lights, or reflected points of light, in the rabbit's eyes.
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Tips & Warnings
Paint your bunny in a natural pose.
Be careful while handling rabbits; they kick and sometimes bite.
References
- Photo Credit Rabbit image by veseliysyslik from Fotolia.com
