This is a collage in response to the anxiety I have felt during these Covid years and being aware of the Climate crisis

I painted a watercolour in Cornwall in March. I added collage to the composition back home in the studio

I painted this in watercolour outside in Cornwall earlier in 2022 and finished it with collage in the studio at home

Drypoint

The Running Hare - Unpredicatable Behaviour

Hares are believe to run back into bush fires, rather than away from them, like other animals.

This collagraph includes the hare, the moon and standing stones

The Hare and the Moon

The hare is connected with the moon, and a kind of pagan spirituality. Seeing a hare gazing at the moon was believed to bring good fortune and abundance. It was also the sacred symbol of the goddess Eostre - the origin of the Easter Bunny symbolising fertility. The Chinese refer to 'the hare in the moon', not the man in the moon.

Crouching Hare - Drypoint

Hares do not burrow underground, but crouch on 'forms' above ground, usually a depression in rough grass or in the shelter of a rock. They protect themselves by lying still as a statue, tucked in close to the ground, with their ears lying flat along their backs. Mothers leave each leveret in a form of its own. These leverets are born with their eyes open and can leave their birthplace soon after they are born.

Hare Trickster

The hare trickster has been reimagined into the Brer Rabbit stories and Disney cartoon characters. It has its origins in Afro-Caribbean and native American stories. The trickster violates principles of social and natural order, playfull disrupting normal life andf then re-establishing it on a new basis. I like the idea of accepting this untrustworthy, self seeking character into one of my 'selves'.

Crazy Brer Rabbit

I coloured the etching and printed it on the slant to show a topsy turvey view of the trickster -  unbalanced and not entiredly in control of itself.

The Trickster Hare

It is interesting to note how the trickster can be interpreted in different ways - unpleasant, crafty, but often successful in achieving his desired aim, but not always.

Thiis hare was inspired by using the inside of a milk carton as the surface for my drypoint. The creases in the surface suggested a window, through which the hare is staring - at me inside.

This is a linocut. 

I like the way it fits into the frame neatly, pausing before he leaps - which way?

I have used this linocut to made a number of cards.