‘Peter Rabbit’ at the Art Brownie Gallery

The Tale of Peter Rabbit inspired me to create the work being shown here, which is on display at the Art Brownie Gallery until January 2013, as a part of the ART BROWNIE Project Miniature Exhibition. Each piece is a tiny spruce wooden block measuring 2.5 inch x 2.5 inch x 1.5 inch in height.

Beatrix Potter (28 July 1866 – 22 December 1943)—was an English author, illustrator, mycologist and conservationist who was best known for her imaginative children’s books featuring animal characters, such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit. She wrote and illustrated 23 Tales and several other books.

Beatrix Potter was interested in nature and enjoyed the countryside. As child, Beatrix had numerous small animals as pets which she observed closely and drew endlessly. Most often her illustrations were fantasies featuring her own pets: mice, rabbits, kittens, and guinea pigs. She was educated by private governesses until she was eighteen. Her study and paintings of fungi led her to be widely respected in the field of mycology. In her thirties, Potter published the highly successful children’s book The Tale of Peter Rabbit and purchased additional farms to preserve the unique hill country landscape. In her late forties she married a local solicitor, William Heelis, and then became a sheep breeder and farmer while continuing to write and illustrate children’s books. Potter left almost all of her property to The National Trust in order to perpetuate the beauty of the Lake District as she had known it, protecting it from developers.