A Little Rabbit in a Wood

I've always enjoyed the nursery rhyme that I start with the words on this piece, not least because it has some great actions including using circles made from your forefingers & thumbs as glasses. However, when I came to teach it to my son a couple of years ago, I was surprised to find I had misremembered most of the words, including the first line!

Memory is a strange thing and often leaves me stranded, trying to recall someone's name or searching for a specific word when trying to explain myself. It is even worse when I try to draw or paint something from my mind. I need some techniques or landmarks to guide me or I end up with a simplification of the object I'm trying to capture.

One of the techniques I use when I want to draw something from life is to sketch it quickly 'in the field' and to take a photo as well to use as reference. Then when I work on the piece back in my studio I have 4 landmarks to help. The memory of the subject, the photograph, the sketch and the memory of making the sketch. It's that last one that I find most important and I'll discuss why in my next post.