Bunnies are Landing!

Yes the bunnies are landing on the moon by the dozens!  As the old Japanese folklore goes, there lives a rabbit in the moon.  How is that possible?  It is merely based on mythical interpretations from the markings on the moon which closely resembles a rabbit pounding some rice cake.  Time for some tea party then.  And her friends have come to visit!

The Moon

The idea about painting a moon theme came about as we commemorate the 50th anniversary of man’s landing on the moon.  And I seem to remember as a tiny little toddler, far back then in 1969, my mother pointing to the moon telling me a rabbit lives there.  “Do you see it?”  Well not at all, as I was trying to hold my tears back.  And hence the cuteness begins.  I took some blank mixed media paper and drew a partial semi-circle on the bottom and began painting the moon using a mixture of two yellow shades of  Ecoline ink and brushing them out briskly.  Then I pressed some gold acrylic paint on top of it using some bubble wrap and smearing the paint around.

The Sky

After having pencilled-sketched in the little bunnies, I went on to paint the sky.  The first step was to dot in some “stars” around the sky with some oil pastels.  Then I brushed on some blue Ecoline ink over them.  Being oil-based, the pastels create a resistance against water-based paints, giving an amazing effect as seen below.

The Bunnies!

I decided to make all my bunnies white and their space outfits pink using acrylic paint.  Some were heads only for some effect.  All the bunnies have no face at all.  I guess I wanted to keep it mysterious and “space like” as well as to emphasize the background..  The helmets of the bunnies which were up in the air were painted in a lighter shade of blue Ecoline ink for a more transparent appearance.  When painting the bunnies on the moon itself, though, I should have sketched them first before painting the moon.  Not to worry, I used some gesso in areas where I was going to paint them.  Fluorescent green colored pencil (Faber Castell’s) was used to colour in the helmets to distinguish it from the background.  To add some dimension to the bunnies’ heads, I further added some some neon pink on the edges.

Putting it all Together

And now curious how it all turned out?  This kawaii piece was all just experimenting with various mediums and techniques to get the best effect.  Here it all is!  Don’t these bunnies look so sweet?  I was actually hesitating about adding the faces on them but too many may be overwhelming so for now, I will leave them.

As usual, I did have a lot of fun with this piece.  I like the way the moon turned out, and although it doesn’t look too spherical (it’s an illustration), you still get that it’s the moon.  And the sky also looks so cool with the ink painted over the resistant oil pastels.  Finally the bunnies, they’re so cute! I just wanted to keep them simple this time.  Maybe I’ll go back to it in future and see what I may add.  Maybe faces on some?  For now, I’m happy with it.