Dedham Tales

Here is the inspiration for Catherine Gruetzke-Blais’s design for her “Regal Rabbit.”

His name is Trooper and he is 4 months old. The Blais family had been looking for a Dalmatian puppy for several months at the time Catherine first heard about the Dedham Public Art Project, and you could say she was “seeing spots.”

The following photos show the transformation from plain white rabbit to Regal Rabbit.  Thanks to Catherine and her daughter Isabelle for the photos.

1.Patching and priming

2. Applying the base coat

3. Stippling for texture. If you look at the rabbit up close, the two-tone base gives it the appearance of marble.

4. Tracing a spot with a stencil made from a rubber shelf liner (top), collaging a paper spot onto the surface (bottom)

5. A few spots appear (top), more spots and some details (bottom)

6. Painting the details.

7. The eyes are made of glass tiles, set in like a mosaic.

8. DONE! Now he will answer Ernie Boch Jr’s invitation to “Come on down!”, and have a clear-coat applied by the Norwood auto dealership.

August 8, 2012

Regal Rabbit is installed at the East Dedham shopping plaza on the corner of High and Bussey Streets, not far from Pottery Lane where the original Dedham Pottery was made. He is sponsored by Delapa Properties. He’ll be there for a while crouching in the garden; go visit him and all of the other bunnies around town. They have certainly added a lot of color, creativity and history to our lives as we drive around doing our everyday chores and routines.

Thanks to Dedham Shines for sponsoring this project, to all the artists who participated, and a special thank yu to Catherine Gruetzke-Blais for letting me tag along on her creative journey.

This entry was posted on August 13, 2012 at 6:58 am and is filed under History/Mystery, JP's Dedham. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.