Denise's Drawing Board: The White Rabbit

Hey Everyone! As we get ready for "quaresima" or lent, I thought I would go back a bit and share the white rabbit again in preparation for Easter. I already posted him on the Denishima Designs page on FB. But now I thought of just showing the images.

As mentioned in that post, the drawing of the white rabbit started what became the Alice Line. This version of the classic bunny just kind of popped up in my head and I had to try it out. I always think how interesting it is to come up with a drawing that looks like you had done it as a quick 5-second sketch, when in actuality, as some artists know... it can take hours... sometimes days to get something resembling anything that you don't mind putting out there. Of course, there are some artists actually capable of whipping out a beautiful drawing in no time at all, but I'm not one of them.

Thinking about those super skilled artist, it comes to mind a story that one of my art history professors had told us about a Chinese brush painter. A patron commissions a painting from this artist (I think it was of a tree... let's say it was a tree). After some time, the patron checks in with the artist about the status of the work and the painter repeatedly tells the client that it is not yet ready. Months turn to years, as the patron continues to check in occasionally on the progress of the painting. Finally, he demands that the artist present him with his request immediately, so the painter takes out a brush and proceeds to paint a beautiful tree. The client is pleased but asks why the artist made him wait so long if he is able to do such work in no time at all. The painter replies that it was because it took that long to become skilled enough to paint the tree in the manner that was required.

Anyway, just wanted to share how the ol' guy turned out in the end. I had featured just the drawing with the swatch of color as in the design on the Denishima page, but here I thought I would also share the painted version, which soon will be released on a few products on Zazzle.

First, here is the initial pencil sketch.

And now the version with the text. I thought of this saying first... but now thinking of changing it to "it's never 2 L8!" I thought it might be a better message... more positive?