Life Drawing: Rabbit

(c) 2013 by David Borden

Last April I visited the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. I walked the wooded path before the heat and children overran the grounds. I spied a small brown rabbit sniffing through the leaves. I stalked him quietly and sketched his foraging. My pursuit pricked its ears, but soon it decided I was harmless. It loped slowly through the bushes, pausing here and there to nibble the bright green shoots.

Recently, I was reminded of this rabbit while Ruby was trying to sketch her cat in the living room. She grew frustrated with his feline caprice.

"Ugh!" she fumed. "Dad, he won't sit still."

"Don't worry about it," I said, "Just do a quick sketch. Try to capture his essence."

I empathize with Ruby. Animals are typically uncooperative models that seldom pause for your convenience. The challenge is capturing the bare line of a living thing as its form describes a path through time. Each sketch is flawed, each proportion not exact, the shapes a bit off, but when all those doodles are taken together, you get the full picture of the creature... of life.. and if you do it well, you can see it come alive again.

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