Albrecht Durer: The Young Hare.

Can you tell what something will feel like just by touching it? What does a rabbit's coat look like? What does if feel like? Is is soft? Is it coarse? The way it feels is called its texture. Your eye cannot tell you what something feels like. Often, things do not feel like they look as if they would feel.

Albrecht Durer was an artist from Germany. He lived almost 500 years ago. The German artists were known for the detail in their works. When Albrecht painted hair on a person's head, it looked as if he painted each hair separately. The surface of the artwork seemed to have texture that was not really there. To your eye it might look like wood, cloth, metal or hair, but it was really paint.

In his watercolor painting of a rabbit, Durer made the little animal seem so real that you want to reach out and touch it; it looks like it's about to get up and hop around. The rabbit's coat is full to keep it warm during the bitter cold German winters. What do you think the rabbit's coat feels like?

DRAW AN ANIMAL IN ITS OWN NATURAL WORLD.

1 Include many details such as grass, leaves, hair, fur, etc.

2 You can use tempera or watercolor paint, wax crayon, ink, chalk or a marking pen.

3 Try to make the paint, or other art material, look like it feels. Make fur look soft or make a rock look hard and smooth.

4 Tell your friends why you chose the animal in your picture, and how you made the textures look real.

WORDS TO DISCUSS

texture surface watercolor Realism details