Watercolour hares

My rogues gallery of watercolour hares: hares with moons, bees, steely looks, and huge grins.

 

My latest loose watercolour hares

I had so much fun playing whilst painting this long-legged hare in a really loose style, that I painted him twice.

"Mr Long legs"

"Mr Long legs" in the making... First wash down and drying.

The unique texture of this paper - Fabriano Torchon Extra Rough (but it isn't actually rough!) - is like a magic wand in your armoury! If you let it and don't fiddle, it will give you beautiful textures and transitions. Especially when you use natural, rather than synthetic, pigments. The particles of natural pigments will settle into its surface and between its fibres in a way that you couldn't replicate with a brush in a million years of trying!

Painting with "don't think about it, just do it!" big bold strokes and flicking a big sodden brush across the page, has created a sense of movement and connected the hare to his background.

TIP. Don't change colours for the background. Use the same pigments that you are going to use to paint the subject.

The hardest part is to come: painting the second layer without obliterating the gorgeousness of the first. Only painting what is really needed.

And adding the deepest darks.

 

"Bad hair piece hare"

And this second watercolour of the same hare, using the same pigments as the first, I called "Bad hair piece hare".

I painted these hares with my paper on a gentle angle (I find the inside tube of a roll of kitchen gives me the perfect slope so that the water travels down the paper, but not at an uncontrollable speed!). But I had more concentrated Prussian blue in my brush this time and when it drifted down the paper from the top of his head, mingling with the Light oxide red, it looked like his toupee had slipped!

I took the photograph on an angle in front of my kitchen window because I wanted to show you the shimmer of the my favourite gold watercolour pigment. Deep gold Van Gogh pigment by Royal Talens.

 

Boxing hares in watercolour - "Ha! You missed!"

Using the same colours and watercolour paper as in the previous two paintings, this is, "Ha! You missed!", ready to go to the framers.

 

 

 

Hares and moons in watercolour

There is something isn't there that just seems naturally right about hares having a whole moon of their own. The combination is one of my favourites to paint. Especially on a grand scale.

 

Don't tell me you love me. This time it won't cut it.

You can see how she came to life, step by step, on a 50cm by 70 cm sheet of watercolour paper here: hare art.

 

Nobody's fool

Find out how he developed from pencil drawing to finished painting and how he got his name here - hare painting.

I painted this hare and her moon with my watercolour students. I wanted them to have some fun with what they had already learnt: painting wet into wet, charging in colours and letting the pigments do their thing and mix on the paper; splashing and flicking pigment onto wet and onto dry; using masking fluid for some of the hare's whiskers.

And something new.

Painting the hare's fur with the other end of their brush!

 

Old man hare

This is one of my very early watercolour paintings and I will never part with it. It encapsulates my style of painting and what I am trying to express so perfectly (for me!). I had wanted my dad to have him but, sadly that wasn't to be.

 

"Of stars and earth,

Old man hare had seen it all.

One night bathed in moon,

He caught man's eye,

And told his truth."

It was the look in the eye of this hare that made me want to paint him and compose the poem to convey what I read in his gaze. Anger at what man has and is doing to this planet of ours.

He is painted on a large watercolour on a sheet of about 45cm by 65cm.

 

Hares and bees in watercolour

I don't think I will ever tire of painting the rather magical combination of a hare and a bee :)

Don't even think of crash landing on me!

This watercolour hare and bee are painted on Fabriano Torchon Extra Rough 25% Cotton 300g/m² 140lb watercolour paper, which has a soft textured surface that allows pigments to mingle in wonderful ways.

"Crash landing".

The pigments that I predominantly I use in all of my paintings are from the Van Gogh range made by Royal Talens.

I have painted this hare and her bee three times. My latest, entitled "BIG bee!" because I drew the bee even bigger than before, went to a lovely family during the 2025 Arundel Gallery Trail.

 

 

Mr Smiley!

I hope you are having a day that makes you grin like this hare, happy with his world :)

I didn't plan to paint him with a huge smile: in fact, my pencil drawing study has him looking regal and statesmanly. But, as is the way when I am in the early throes of a watercolour painting, things have a habit to happen all on their own! In this case I touched the paper with a mix of blue and oxide red for his mouth and it spread out all on it's own into a wonderful grin.

That made me smile back. There was no way I was going to lift that off the paper.

 

Fantasy hare

A little reminder to you if you are setting out on your watercolour journey that it's perfectly OK to paint anything in any colours YOU like!

This hare painted in pastel colours has been saying hello to me each day for a few years but now he has a new home with a couple who saw in him what I did and fell in love :)

 

 

 

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