African Folktale: Clever Hare

I thought it would be a bonus this week to post this as an I-Fri entry as well as for the assignment we post every month here at the Soup. I used a completely different technique this time around. I used acrylics of course, but started with a dark under-painting and layered the colors. This have me a sketchy, loose border. It was fun, and definitely something I'll be playing with more in the future. (I placed the text underneath the corresponding pictures.)

"Hare looked out over his field. If he was going to have food to eat, he would have to plant a crop. But if he was going to plant a crop, he'd have to clear the field first. That was a lot of work — more work than Hare wanted to do.

Hare was a clever animal, so he soon had an idea. He dragged a length of rope behind him and lay in wait in the bushes outside his field. A big African elephant came lumbering along. Hare bet the elephant he could beat him in a tug-of-war. The large elephant laughed at the idea, coming as it did from such a small animal. He scooped up the rope with his trunk. Hare picked up the other end and scampered through the bushes and across his field. There he hid behind another row of bushes."

(The rest of the tale: "Soon enough a muddy hippopotamus waddled by. Hare dared the hippo to beat him in a tug-of-war. The proud hippo picked up the rope with his teeth. Hare hopped into the bushes and gave the rope a tug. When the elephant and the hippo felt the rope move, they each pulled hard. The powerful animals dragged the rope, back and forth, back and forth, until night fell. Each time the rope moved, it plowed another row in clever Hare's field.")

**I've taken Leeza's suggestion and expanded this story into a dummy book. Click here for a look at it.**