Sketching Rabbit/Hare Structure

On Tuesday, Yvan, Claudette and myself headed to the hunting and fishing museum.  We’d just had a huge snowstorm that was a real struggle to clean up because the 11-12 feet of the stuff that has preceded it made it nearly impossible to find a place to put the new snow.  Anyways, it felt really good to head out for a day of sketching.

Unfortunately (for me), that same storm was beating up my joints.  I was limping a bit, but the real problem was my left hand and wrist which made it very hard (impossible?) to draw.  We had fun and I did three sketches, all of which were so full of errors and attempts to fix lines that went off willy-nilly that I’d be too embarrassed to share them.

We were drawing rabbits, however, and that got us discussing the structural underpinnings of a rabbit.  When they sit back on their hind legs, they start looking like a ball of fur and it’s hard to make out what’s really going on inside.  When we got home Yvan and I asked Mr. Google if he could provide us with a rabbit skeleton to study.  He obliged and this morning I drew a rabbit skeleton, well sort of.  My hand was a bit better this morning but it’s still hard to get my lines to flow.  But I do understand lagomorph anatomy just a bit better.

Stillman & Birn Beta (10×7), Pilot Falcon, Sketch Ink Thea (grey)

3 thoughts on “Sketching Rabbit/Hare Structure

  1. I find the rabbit skeleton fascinating! I actually did a sketch very similar to this a while back as a Valentine card (I won’t bother to explain 😉 ) . . . I, too, was surprised to see those hind legs, but then it made a lot of sense when I thought about how rabbits leap and push themselves forward.

    • As I was drawing my rabbit I was thinking about how I could draw it to be delivering and Easter basket. We share sick minds I fear (grin). I just love drawing bones. Don’t know what it is but I miss my trips to Ottawa and all the dinosaur bones at the Natural History museum.

      As for leg structure, rabbits are very similar to dogs, cats, rats, and lots of other 4-legged animals. You start to see big differences in animals who walk on their toes like horses. I knew all this but was still fooled by the ball of fur look of a rabbit.

  2. Pingback: Learning To Sketching Rabbits | Larry D. Marshall

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