Ha! I just thought of this while I was writing this post...it is usually The Tortoise and the Hare...
I love doing rabbits...and yes, I need to show you more of these someday...I love a play on words.
I have done these Hares for years with Series #1 Wind in Hare- (get it) Rabbits in motion- which I will include this one is that series. I have made them on roller skates, on planes, on skis, on bicycles...anything in motion or with movement of hair (hare that is).
Series #2 Moon Rabbits- Japanese hares, and Fare Hares- sweet rabbits.
The Hare
For this commission piece I was ask to do a scuba diver in a whimsical manner. Love that! I like my hares to be just fun and with plenty of character.
I knew this rabbit needed to be in wetsuit...which I will cover in this posting...
Here is Harry...in all his fullness.
Harry-Wind in my Hare©: Leslie Molen
Photography©: Mark Mortensen
Working photos by Leslie
While designing this piece, I originally thought about the whole shebang... the tank, bc vest, mask...etc etc...
I decided in this case less is more...just the wetsuit. I would lose the connection between the Seahorse and the Hare with all the other stuff in competition around it!
It is more important that your eye zero in on the story..the "human" element of the relationship of the Seahorse with the Hare than how proficient could I make a scuba tank!
I will cover more of expression and relationship in next week's posting.
The Wetsuit
This may be more info than you "signed up" for on wetsuits. I feel that when you are creating a piece from a reality, you want to capture the essence and clarity of your story. You can take the highlights from a chosen garment and bring them into the piece your are creating. I find that if you try to replicate everything exactly it is very easy for your piece to become overworked. Of course, if you are doing exact replications- that is a different story.
I went online to find a nice photo of a wetsuit. The wonderful thing is that my husband, Mark, and I dive, so I know what a wetsuit looks like and how it feels.
I purchased a nice weight black poly with a bit of wool in it. I found that it still was not stiff enough. I didn't want to add thickness but needed stiffness, so I lined it with a heavy weight iron-on stabilizer. Which worked for me in two ways, to add stiffness and also to keep the edges of the wool from fraying.
I decided that I wanted also to have that overlock effect and actually pieced this together as a "real" wetsuit would have been made. I choose to simplify the amount of pieces for scale.
Most people who dive use a 3mm or if you are like me and do not want to chance being cold a 5mm (mostly women use these!)
Of course, I would have to add this to the sleeve area, as would be a standard.
Next was creating the back zipper. Most wetsuits have a long nylon webbing strap to pull up your wetsuit yourself...
I found that while the wetsuit was on Harry, I had to hand-sew the zipper in place to get a nice streamlined fit.
Final touch would be the booties.
I did use a fun foam "rubber" sole and with artistic license made the zip up in the back!
