Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

I found a website called reusable art, and on it I found this ink drawing of a rabbit, which I tried to reproduce as an exercise. There are some interpretation errors, but as a whole and a first attempt, it’s not that bad. The original is out of copyright, in the public domain, so I was able to redraw it without giving credit, even though the original artist is unknown, as far as I can tell.

I looked for artists drawing rabbits and my eye fell on Wallace Tripp, the American illustrator and author. I did a poor attempt of re-sketching one of his pencil sketches that can be found on Wikimedia. I suppose he deserves a more careful study than I did with a few minutes of using a search engine. Credit for the original goes to Wallace Tripp, of course.

Sketch of two bunnies sword fighting. The bunny on the left was drawn first, with some changes afterwards, carefully trying to remember my bunny drawing earlier today. The second bunny on the right was more cartoony, expressive. I had to put quite some effort into getting the body somewhat looking like a bunny. With that under my belt, I adjusted the bunny I drew first, adding more bulk to its buttocks area. Relatively speaking, compared to humans when reduced to bunny size, bunnies have a lot more muscle mass on their upper legs.

It’s a rough sketch, incomplete, but I hope you like it anyway.

There’s power in doing the same thing more than once. The above drawing was my first attempt to draw from a reference, which I normally would throw away. I decided to share it, so I could show you that one can improve an initial drawing or sketch.

If I had stuck with the first one, I would have had problems getting things in the correct proportions, even though I had measured them from the reference before I started sketching. So I decided to scrap it for that very reason.

In the second sketch I tried to capture the bulk of the masses first (hind quarter and head), making sure they were roughly at the correct distance from each other. Only then I added the connecting bits and the appendices (legs, ears).

Even though the second sketch is much better, I feel I could improve the basic proportions even further. Having reference from different angles of the same animal would help as well, though that isn’t possible in most cases with images found on the Internet.

These 30 s sketches are based on the idea bunny playing the trumpet. When I do the first one, I don’t seem to have enough time, and with the last one, I often have seconds left after completion. It is strange how that works.

More 30 s rapid sketches of a bunny doing something. Today it’s dancing. No time to think, just flash an idea into your head in 1 or 2 s, then there are only 28 s left to put it onto paper. This is a good warm-up exercise, since it forces you to be as clear as you can, given the time restriction. There’s no time to fuss about style, nor to use an eraser. The good thing is that it doesn’t take much time. Twelve sketches in 7 minutes (including the few seconds break between a sketch and the next).

Some 30 s rapid sketches of a bunny eating a carrot, as a warm-up exercise. They get easier to do every day, which is encouraging.

Sad bunny sketch. After some 30 s warm-up sketches I mentioned yesterday, I picked one of them I thought had potential and redrew it without time restriction. Though I’m not quite happy with it, I still thought it would be useful as a work in progress. I’m keeping at this drawing thing, gradually getting better at drawing bunnies. Yay!

Early doodle on Flickr.

Anyone can do this exercise. Give yourself 30 seconds to draw a bunny. There’s no time to think. Just draw whatever comes to you, as long as it’s a bunny. Doesn’t have to be polished, just expressive. Think theatrics, making broad movements, so even people in the back of the room can see what your character is doing. This is a great warm-up exercise. You are allowed to fail and try again in the next 30 s sketch. You could even pick the ones you like and develop it further, taking more time to draw. Or not.