One summer, my brother decided to raise some rabbits. I don’t remember if they were for a 4-H project or if he was raising them for meat. Since I was quasi-vegetarian, he liked to tease me that we were going to eat them, but to be honest, I had never encountered a dish made from rabbit in all of my years of living in Iowa, nor had I ever met anybody who claimed to enjoy rabbit. The one and only time I encountered rabbit as a food item was during a trip to France some years ago, when a friend’s mother made it for dinner. I am quasivegetarian and I just couldn’t bring myself to eat the dish. The rabbits my brother decided to raise were black and white and they lived in a hutch for most of the summer before they were moved to a small, enclosed stall in our barn. One day, the rabbits all got out, which may have been my fault or may have been someone else’s. Nobody knew. For several years after that, we would spot black-and-white rabbits running around our farm.
I’ve always loved rabbits and would love to have one as a pet, but, in the meantime, I simply enjoy painting them. This particular rabbit is named Juniper and I saw his photos on Instagram at @mycountrydays and fell in love. Linn, his owner, graciously gave me permission to paint him. He is painted on a 9-by-12-inch wooden panel, first sealed, gessoed and then covered with gold watercolor ground. I used watercolors and casein for this one, then sealed it with Spectrafix and then a Golden spray varnish. If you are interested, please send me an email or visit the listing on my Etsy site. Thanks for stopping by!
