Step One - Be inspired by a scene on a vintage plate
I found this sweet children's dish set on Pinterest. I was drawn to the shy bunny wearing a dress and the lovely cottage in the background (image originally pinned from The Storybrook Rabbit's Etsy shop).
Step 2 - Reinterpret the scene in my own style
Step 3 - Paint the scene on a wooden circle as wall art
This part actually sounded fun, but quite intimidating. I rarely paint, and never on wood! So I had my husband cut some small wooden circles for warming up. I tried gouache and acrylic. And made a few character portraits just for fun. Here are two.
Next, I moved on to painting the bunny scene on a larger piece of wood. It came out more painterly than I anticipated, but I rather like the sky and the grass—the texture adds a bit of depth. In retrospect, I should have carried some of that texture through on the bunny. I think I was a bit nervous to add in too many details. No delete button!
Step 4 - Second-guess the painted version and create a digital interpretation (my own self-imposed bonus extra step)
I am so used to working on the computer, that I just had to see what a digital version would look like. A few more details found their way into this layout. In the end, I uploaded the painted version, since that was the true assignment. Which do you prefer?
Now that the paints are out and dusted off, I may just pick them up again soon and see what happens...
