Rabbits

As you know, I became interested to the family of rabbits, the Leporidae, when I met the bunny, the one who is with me most of the time and helps me to improve my illustrations. These fluffy and gentle creatures are different from hares, where they live above the ground, as contrast to the rabbits who had this rabbit holes. They are known active between dawn and dusk.

I've search their pictures and I find some interesting, and even grotesqueness, to them. I saw a sculpture this grotesque rabbit in Chartres Cathedral, and most likely it represents a malevolent creature with a face along its crotch. Animal symbolism is common belief across and around the world, as in the Chinese zodiac where they included the rabbit as part of it. As far as I know, in Western Europe, rabbits symbolizes fertility and he represents the Moon and night, probably that if you look closely at the full bright moon, you will see, among it's shaded regions, that there's a side view of a rabbit hoping eastward. This kind of observation is popular among the American Indian tribes.
Back to the grotesque rabbit, I'm not sure why they, the artist, associate the rabbit into an evil creature. But perhaps it's up to the artist's personal belief or interpretation, or even experience that he may be the victim of the bunny's being trickster.

In other cultures, rabbits, or even hares, are considered trickster, like in India, in Panchatantra fables, rabbits are clever tricksters and its enemies are foolish lion and elephant. Also in native Americans were they had a popular tale about a mischief maker called Manabozho.
The bunny told me about the rabbits in Spain. She went there almost a month ago for her scholarship in art history. She told me that rabbits were selling to the market alive, and sell them for food. How pity they were she told me.

As I search further about the fluffy creatures, I look for blogs and illustrations about bunnies. I saw this cute illustration of a bunny crossing the lake in a flower pot. This was illustrated by Nakisha Elsje VanderHoeven and she had other several bunny illustrations done in watercolor. Nakisha, known to them as the American Beatrix Potter, was born in San Fransisco and she grew along with other animals, especially to her beloved horse, Fox, during her teen years. Her parents encouraged her to bloom her creativity through art.Like the bunny, Nakisha is also a Tarot reader,and she had an illustration of cards which she featured White Rabbit and Dutch ( the black and white) Rabbit.You can see her other works for sale in this site. But you can also see her official website for more info about her and her wonderful works.

I also encountered a wonderful illustration of a dressed rabbit by James Jack. The title of the work is Sioux Legend of the Personified Rabbit Who Enters the Lair of Pahe-Wathahuni Devourer of Hunters. Somehow, this illustration has a similar style and atmosphere with the bunny, some kind of a hazy and mysterious going on the scene even if you did noyknow its title. This kind of style probably what the bunny wants to achieve, and she kept practicing it many times.
The artist James Jack had a paintings of American Indian scenes. You can also look his artworks for sale here.

I also saw this picture of a brown bunny with a kitten at the same site. This picute was taken by Jane Burton. She is known as a photographer of animals, paricularly domesitcated animals. You can visit her site at Warren Photographic to see more about her works. Though randomly, I encountered a site of an Australian photgrapher named Jane Burton. She had a great photgraphs of landscape in a sad, gloomy mood. I'm not sure if they are only one person since their photgraphs have different personality. You can visit the other Jane Burton in this site.

Coincidentically, last april, the bunny drew a sketch pencil portrait of me and herself in my new sketchpad ( the one I mentioned earlier). But here, she depicted me as a ginger cat, giving a chocolate cookies ( with vanilla filling) to her, one of our favorite cookies and we sometimes eat it during free time afternoon.


Pictures of works of Jane Burton, James Jack, and Nakisha Elsje VanderHoeven are courtesy of art.com