Framed Bunny Portraits
It’s not like I decide I will now paint a rabbit with a smile or a scowl, or ears pointed this way or that, they just flow. It’s like a snowstorm, where each snowflake is different; this is a blizzard of bunny-flakes.
- Hunt Slonem
I first discovered Hunt Slonem a few years ago while taking a long walk through the interwebs. I fell head over heels in love with his colorful, neo-expressionist-style bunny paintings and his bold, mod, stacked bunny sculptures. I have been dreaming of creating a Slonem tribute project for a long time. I am thrilled that this long-standing day dream has finally come to fruition. Just in time for Spring, Easter and HOP FEST! When I was developing this project I could not decide if I should go or bunny portraits or bunny sculpture..so I decided to do both. You can read all about Hunt and check out his stunning work here. Hunt also has a super fun Instagram account.
Materials:
bunny portrait printable (scroll down to sign-up for our newsletter + receive your free bunny printable)
glass or acrylic tray or enamel tray or tinfoil for monoprints
gold paint. we used this one. It is beautiful but definitely not kid friendly. I reccomend this one or this one for use with kids age 3+ (acrylic paint stains and you must supervise young kids so that they do not get it in eyes, nose or mouth)
repurposed microwave mac and cheese containers
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Hunt’s loose, expressionist, portrait style lends itself beautifully to a variety of art mediums to explore. You could try sumi-e painting (japanese brush painting). You could use oil pastels, or charcoal or chalk pastel.
We used ink daubers and paint pens for our bunnies. I will show you a little behind the scenes of our process but these portraits could be achieved with a variety of art materials.
One of the tables in our home studio is partially covered in a big 7 foot piece of glass. This glass surface sees a ton of art action. It is so nice to have a non-porous surface to work on. It doubles as a paint palette and a printing station. It is also where we use the hot glue gun. When we are done we spray a little cleaning solution and wipe it down with a rag and it’s ready for the next art experience!
Here is a bunny drawn with a dauber filled with india ink on the glass surface. Next we will lift the print with a piece of paper. Could we just ink the bunny portrait directly on the paper? Yes! But the girls had so much fun pulling these prints.
This is another bunny created directly on the glass surface with diluted periwinkle acrylic in a paint dauber. You can also ink your surface with a q-tip or even a paint brush! If you don’t have a 6 foot piece of glass laying around you could use a mirror, or a glass baking dish, an enamel tray, or even tinfoil.
We wanted our bunnies to fit nicely inside our up-cycled mac and cheese cartons (soon to be gilded frames). So we coated the back rim of the container and created a print. This allowed us to see (roughly) how big our artwork needed to be to fit snugly inside.
Here is an example of a bunny drawn with paint pen. Our “bunny portrait printable” is on the right. The outlined and drawn bunny is on the left. The trace was done by my 7th grader with a black Posca pen on hot pink card stock.
Liquid gold leaf is A M A Z I N G. I have never seen a more vibrant gold at this price point but it is not kid friendly at all. The fumes were a bit much (like kick the girls out of the room stinky) and it was hard to get off my brush and hands. This is an adults only material, to be used in a well-ventilated space, with a mask…and honestly the back label had a pretty serious health warning so I think I would only pull this little bottle out for very special occasions.
These two gold paints are not quite as vibrant as the gild but I love them and I would use them with kids over the age of 3 (who don’t put paint in their mouths).
I think the black and white prints are my favorite. They just jump off the frame next to that gold!
So in love with this monoprint that H made!
