Chasing the Rabbit

This is how a drawing is born:

I am reading something.  Not sure what, but most likely it's on the internet.  And I come across a quote from Albert Einstein:

"I have no special talent.  I am only passionately curious."

Yes, I say to  myself.  Passionately curious.  What an excellent phrase.

I jot down the quote in my sketch book, then write out beneath it,

"Be Passionately Curious"

I like the look of it.  It is the sort of thing I would stencil above my baby's crib.  If I had one wish for a child, it would definitely be for him or her to be passionately curious.  So many wonderful things come of it.

So there's the excellent phrase, sitting all lonely in my sketchbook, and I think,

That could use some embellishment.

So I pick my pen back up and it just so happens that the shape of the phrase lends itself beautifully to having a heart drawn around it, and as I'm drawing the heart it turns into a speech bubble (as hearts do), which of course makes me realize that someone needs to be saying the excellent phrase.

Curiouser and curiouser, I think.  Or maybe someone else thinks it, and I just pluck it out of the aether.  Either way, I know it is going to have to be Alice that I draw.

Initially I think I'll draw Alice Liddell, but after about twenty minutes of poking around on Wikipedia (you really ought to read about the "Carroll Myth") I come to the conclusion that no, I am not going to draw Alice Liddell, I am just going to draw Alice, because regardless of whether or not the one inspired the other, it is Alice's passionate curiosity that I am actually familiar with.

Thus:

 

 

I may work more colors in later.

(And in case you are curious, my elephant's-child wanderings of the day also educated me on Victorian Dress Reform, which was a real and awesome thing, you guys, which in turn led me to learn about bloomers, pantalettes, crinolines, farthingales, bustles, panniers, and  and can I just say that the history of fashion is freaking insane and fascinating?  Also I spent some time learning more about Lady Hamilton, for good measure.)