Easter Bunny

This is going to be a blog about that art I am doing, sometimes I will talk about my process and sometimes I will describe my thoughts behind the art, just to give you a jumping off point for understanding.  But art is always in the hands of the audience and I'd love to hear your thoughts on my creations.
 

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This piece doesn't have much meaning behind it other than I wanted to draw a bunny for Easter.  Today, I'm going to show you my process of how I created this image, but later I'll talk about why I started making art with all these tiny, time intensive lines and layers of colors.  

This drawing is 8.5x11" and it took my at least 15 hours to complete.  


If I was painting, I would normally start with the background first, but since pastels never dry unless you spray it, I started with the bunny first.  I sketched it out on my pastel paper, just a rough outline to get the general idea and shape.

I put a base color of green on the background just to help with the overall look of the color I try to reach with the lines.  I then start drawing colored lines.  The first color I use is the color I want it to look like at the end of all the layers.  Then I normally draw the complementary color (so yellow then purple).  I do this to make the color more vibrant and to make the lines move more.  It's all a swirling vortex of color and lines that creates an illusion of movement even in a static piece like this one. 

Here I didn't start with the complementary color because I really wanted to start working on similar colors to the yellow. Yellow is not a very powerful color and the pastel stick gets coated with the other colors, so I have to make sure all the colors work with the yellow.  

 I then go through and do all the basic complementary colors.  I do this for the reason above and then because it creates a visual contrast and interestingness to the colors. 

The last few layers are directly related to the overall color I want to achieve.  So for instance if I want yellow, I might use a very light green and an orange.  I would put the yellow color on and then use variations of hues to achieve the  right yellow.  Depending on the color strength, like how intense it is, this could take two to five more layers.  I just work it until I get the color I was looking for.  

So after I colored in the bunny, I worked on the background.  I started with green lines that followed the shape of the bunny and then went with my complementary colors from there. 

I made sure to do purple and yellow last, because yellow is similar to green.  Then I did the darker green I started with and then a light, bright green.  And there it is. 
Each layer of color for the background took my at least 45 minutes.  I was even surprised by how much time it took.  But it's very cathartic and the repetition is soothing.