This is a detail from an oil painting I have been working on for more than a year. The painting is called Rush to Innocence and includes two children in the upper left hand corner of the painting running toward these three rabbits. Why has it taken more than a year? This is one of the first paintings for me going in a new direction. I have let the painting sit and percolate for several weeks at a time before going back in and painting. I have probably put more thinking time into this painting than any I have painted in the last five to ten years.
The star of the painting is Snownose the rabbit who has posed for me a couple of times, along with his brothers. Snownose was rescued by a co-worker. Snownose and his family were living in a garden near a busy road. The mother rabbit was killed by a car and my co-worker, who was tending to the garden, took Snownose and his brothers home and raised them. Rabbits do not usually do well when they don't have their mother to help them, but Snownose and one brother have survived for more than a year now.
It has taken me many trials to make these rabbits right and I'm still not done. The outline of the rabbits was originally closer to the edge than I wanted, so I had to move them all about an inch to the left. Each time I paint them, it seems like their body silhouette changes and becomes more accurate. Which means I was way off at the beginning. This painting will be in my solo show at Homewood Studios in October 2010. Most of the works in that show will be of a new style for me and will be pieces never exhibited before. I am very excited about this opportunity. I am also excited to have made much progress on Rush to Innocence lately and can see a light at the end of the tunnel.
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