Bunny and Sunflowers — a note on drawing softness

It started, as many things do, with a walk.

I was somewhere in late spring — the kind of afternoon where everything is just a little too warm to be comfortable, but you stay outside anyway because the light is doing something you don’t want to miss. There were sunflowers in someone’s garden, not yet fully open, still leaning into the day as if deciding whether to trust it. I took a photo with my phone and then mostly forgot about it.

Weeks later I was sitting with my dotted journal open, not planning anything, just letting my hand move. The bunny appeared first. I don’t know why — I hadn’t been thinking about rabbits, hadn’t seen one recently. But there it was, small and settled, ears soft against its back. And then the sunflowers came naturally around it, because something about the shape felt right. A quiet animal surrounded by things that face the light.

I like ink on dotted journal paper for moments like this. The dots are forgiving in a strange way — they give you just enough structure to orient yourself, but they never really impose. The paper has a slight tooth to it, and the ink sits on top rather than sinking in, which means your lines stay honest. There’s no correcting them. You commit to every stroke, and either it works or it becomes part of the texture of the thing.

The piece is small, fourteen by fourteen centimetres, which felt important. I wanted it to be something you had to lean close to. I wanted the bunny to feel held by the frame, protected by it, not dwarfed.

For me the bunny has always carried something to do with gentleness — with moving through the world quietly, paying attention, not causing disturbance. And sunflowers are entirely about direction. They know what they’re turning toward. Putting them together felt like a little statement about how you can be soft and still know which way to grow.

I finished it in one sitting. That almost never happens. Usually I put something down, leave it for a day, come back to it suspicious. This one I just completed, and when I looked up the afternoon had gone entirely.

I think that’s the best sign there is.