Can Curiosity be Deadly?

by Daniel Mackie December 08, 2015

 The Fox and the Hare

You need to be careful with your curiosity. Too much of it could result in you finding yourself in a life threatening situation. Aesop’s fable, 'The Hare and the Fox' illustrates this perfectly. A hare is interested to know more about the fox, so tells him he is interested to know what his nature is like. The fox (no doubt a smile creeping across his lips) asks the hare to dinner so he can show him what his nature is like!

Many cultures have stories and fables about foxes being tricky and sly, and this one keeps with that theme. But Aesop’s fable suggests that the hare in this tale already knows the fox is untrustworthy, but still out of deadly curiosity, wishes to know more… mmmm, the fox sensing an opportunity suggests the hare comes to his house for “dinner”. Now there is the red light Mr Hare!

The hare in this fable pays with his life for not using caution to stem his desire to know about the fox's nature. Rudyard Kipling was probably aware of this fable. He illustrated this in his Just so Story, “The Elephant Child” curiosity leads him into a deadly situation with a crocodile.

I often work on more than one painting at a time, generally I have three on the go at any one time, I usually draw them all out first and once I am happy with the composition, I then paint them one by one. This seems to have the effect of linking the ones I do together as they often has similar colours or motifs. I used to do four at once but one always turned out to be a stinker!

I did these two together, both painted on Saunders Waterford watercolour paper stretched on the drawing board. As you can see, pigments Rose Madder Genuine and Quinacridone Gold Feature in both of them, although I did use Prussian Blue in the fox -  this colour is becoming favourite! The blue in the hare’s body is Cerulean Blue mixed with Davy’s Gray.

The Boxing Hare and Sitting Fox are available as both cards and prints. 

These two designs are part of the Woodland Collection.

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