More Boxing Hares

The previous Boxing Hare painting has recently sold and as I enjoyed painting it I thought I would try one or two more. That image was painted from a photo by Nicola B from PMP... an image of a statue of Boxing Hares so I was interested in trying a different image this time. The problem is, images of boxing hares are incredibly difficult to come by... as you can imagine just happening to stumble upon them with camera to hand is unlikely and of course a lot of the images are copyright and so I have actually contacted one or two photographers for permission to use their images.

In the meantime, I have found some copyright free images on the internet and it struck me that if I did some drawing practice of one or two I could mix and match them and make up my own compositions so that I am not actually using anyone's images, in fact the plan is, as I get to know them a bit better, I won't need to refer to images, but will be able to draw them from memory and in whatever pose I want, well that's the plan anyway!!!

These here are from the copyright free images but have mixed and matched them taking snippets from a few so that I am really doing my own compositions, this first has used the same palette as the original, Perm Aliz Crimson and Perylene Green

This second one is a bit disappointing. I like the composition but I have used some very old paper my Dad got me when he used to work at a printers... must be over 20 years ago. It is Saunders, has a very cream colour and looks and feels fine but as I add paint and water it apparently has very little size and the paint barely moves apart from soaking right into the paper and lots of little dots of dark water appear (disappear when it dries but I can't move the paint at all wet or dry, even when I tried with my magic sponge on a small section). I have used cob blue, cad yellow and cad red... different choices for me as I rarely use the cadmiums (bit too opaque for me) and unfortunately they haven't kept their identities on this paper as they sank in too much so no more old Saunders for me... has got me wondering if paper has a sell by date??? Anyone any ideas about it?

So this is the second painting

Think the right one's body could be a bit longer but can work on that and maybe do a bit with their faces but the main trouble is the paper and how the colours have mingled on it.... need to throw it out or might see if I can use it for Brusho... now there's an idea!!