Little Paintings for my Kickstarter 'The Wind in the Willows' Book Campaign

 I feel like I'm blowng the dust off this blog, polishing my spectacles, and thumbing through its pages to see where I last posted... December 2020?!!! Oh dear. In explanation I use this blog to post my thoughts and process on painting, and Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for promotion. Over the last year and a half I've been so busy, I've barely been able to look around and post something meaningful, until now.

As part of my Kickstarter campaign to gather pre-orders for my fully illustrated edition of 'The Wind in the Willows' (take a look), I have been creating 15 small watercolours for those lucky backers who snapped them up in the first few days of the Kickstarter launch. I also managed to make a time lapse video painting Ratty, start to finish. 

 

Many people ask me about my technique, hopefully this video will give you some pointers. At the beginning I start with my basic linework (which has been slightly erased with a putty rubber). Then I add an underpainting of cobalt blue and cadmium red mixed together. Those colours create a dull violet, perfect for cast shadows on a warm day (complimentary to yellow ochre). Once the underpainting is dry enough, I add local colours and then start to build up deeper tones and details all over. Lots of work is required on the fur to give Ratty a nice texture, but I have to be careful not to overwork his shirt and trousers, which is easy to do with transparent watercolour. The red chequer for the basket liner is left until last, because I want to build up all the tonal values first and then let it influence the layer of red watercolour. I do this with all patterned fabrics.

Here are the other character paintings, all taken from scenes in the book:

Like Summer Tempests Came His Tears

'Like Summer Tempests Came His Tears' watercolour and gouache , 24 x 31cm

Another 'The Wind In The Willows' illustration, finished this morning and shared with the online world! Here Badger gives Toad some stern words, criticising his past behaviour and blaming him for the loss of Toad Hall. However, he also offers hope when he comes to explain there is a secret tunnel into Toad's old residence which they can use to flush out the wicked stoats, ferrets and weasels. Good old Mr Badger, I say!

I had plenty of fun adding the extra details to create a further narrative in the image, such as the oars above the fireplace and the framed map of the river and it's tributaries on the wall. Also, please take the time to read the newspaper headline, which harks back to the adventures of Toad.

There are also cameos for my Grandmother's caddy box on the mantlepiece and the obligatory cornishware mug on the table.

Sketch 'Like Summer Tempests Came His Tears'

My sketch for 'Like Summer Tempests Came His Tears'. Badger has some stern words for Toad as the four friends formalise a plan to retake Toad Hall.

It was a lot of fun trying to visualise the inside of Ratty's home. I'm hoping once the colour work begins I can really play with the warm light from the fireplace and how it might cast interesting shadows on the wall and floor.

Mr Toad In Court

'Mr Toad In Court'

watercolour and gouache

51 x 39cm

Last week I completed this complicated scene from 'The Wind In The Willows'. Mr Toad has been brought in front of a judge to hear his sentence for stealing a car and driving recklessly.

My rough drawing. Compared with the finished painting you can see I made some changes, especially on the faces.

I followed all the usual procedures on the creation of this illustration. Thumbnails, rough preparatory drawing, transferred pencil onto watercolour paper, sepia underpainting, watercolour work and finally gouache finishing touches. Nothing out of the ordinary. Therefore, in this post, I have chosen to highlight some of the details in the painting that are not immediately obvious, but I feel make a difference in how you read the image.

A spiky friendship

I've 'raised the bar'

Both my wife and myself make cameo appearances in this scene. I appear to have changed profession, and Suzanne now hangs out with hedgehogs.

I detest littering.

The discarded 'Times' newspaper headline reads MR TOAD ON TRIAL. Note the burnt out matches on the table used to light the table candles when the sun drops.

Vicky is not amused.

Queen Victoria is quite shocked at Toad's sentence (or is she showing disapproval?). Also the human and owl judge have their own painted portrait in the corner, just above peeling wallpaper.

25% Off Signed Limited Edition Prints

Here's a little New Year's gift to you all.

In other news I have recently completed this illustration for 'Paisley Rabbit & the Treehouse Contest'.

31 x 39cm watercolour and gouache

Here Paisley is meeting the site manager and architect as they, and the construction team, begin work on building Paisley's treehouse.

As you can see, I started out with a cobalt blue underpainting, in the hope all the shadows would remain cool which would create a nice contrast with the warm spots of dappled light. I must confess, once the watercolour painting was completed, I did introduce some pastel cobalt gouache to the shadow areas on the trucks.

The Wind In The Willows

Over the past 3 months, and in-between other jobs, I have been working on a collection of 30 watercolour illustrations for 'The Wind In The Willows', to be published by Guomai in China.

Mole's house is getting a bit of TLC

It's a dream job for me, Kenneth Grahame's book has been a rich source of inspiration over the years. I just wish I had more time available to me to produce large illustrations instead of mainly spots. I think I will keep adding to this image bank in the hope I can get another book published in the future containing even more artwork.

Ratty sets out in the winter air to find his friend

You can see many more of these illustrations on my new website - click here

'Circus Parade' Work In Progress

For the last six days I have been working intensely on this large 90 x 50cm watercolour painting. It might not be a mural but it's large enough for me!

Fuzzy photo time! Still using the drafting I was given when I was a school boy.

You can see I returned to the usual sepia tonal under-painting to maintain a warm hue throughout the image. I decided if all the action is inside a tent lit by gas lamps, without natural light, then all the shadows are going to be warm.

Fuzzy / wonky photo! Note the reflected warm light on the underside of the elephants.

Once the under-painting was completed, I blocked in all the local colour for every single character and object. In the process of 'blocking-in', I suddenly realised I needed to roughly outline most of the audience, using sepia, in order to create a mass of shapes that would convince the viewer they were looking at a group of seated animals. This took a  l  o  n  g  time, not surprisingly, but as I introduced local colour, when I returned to 'blocking-in', the effect was as intended and so worth the effort.

Final fuzzy photo! The current state of the painting, waiting in my studio for Monday morning.

Local colour down, I started to really render each individual character in the parade as best I could, starting from the left and moving across. I'm still in that tight rendering process now, but I'm happy with my progress. At this rate, I should be finished late next week - unless I run away to the circus.

'Barging Through' Rough Drawing

'Mason's Joy' is causing a lot of disharmony on the canal.

This will be the final painting in my series of animal characters influenced by 'The Wind In The Willows'.

The setting is based on Horton bridge, on the Kennett And Avon canal near Devizes. In order to get the appropriate photographic reference, I took a very nice five minute drive, with my son Arthur, down to the bridge. Then with my two year-old in a harness on my bag, I trooped around the tow path with my camera in hand. While I took photographs, Arthur commentated on his surroundings - he especially liked the boats but he didn't think much to the police-badger.

'Warming Up' Finished

Warming Up
Watercolour & Gouache
51 x 39cm

After a break from painting to work on other jobs, I have finally finished Mr Badger's kitchen. I'm very pleased with the final result but it does feel like I took longer on it than I should have. A possible reason for the drawn out painting process could be I decided to have red and black tiles, and a complicated Persian rug on the kitchen floor.

Below you can see a few photos I took as I painted. Sorry about the blurry shots, what can I say, having a wild badger model in your studio while painting can make your hand shake.

The beginnings of my rough drawing, getting the basic layout and positioning of the characters.

The finished rough - notice how I have changed the perspective, especially the fireplace horizontals. I realised I had to use two point perspective to create realistic diagonal kitchen tiles and so the two vanishing points positively affected the rest of the composition.

Once the under-painting was completed I then blocked in colour with a medium sized round brush.

I had nearly finished at this stage, I just needed to fully render the wash bucket, fireplace, food stocks and rug.

School Playground

 'School Playground'
Watercolour & Gouache
66 x 50cm

After working on other jobs and taking a week off to teach a summer school course, I have finally finished 'School Playground'.

I'm pleased with the overall result but I do think I could have developed the relationship between the characters and first school further. Maybe by depicting a young animal going through the doorway or a few heads poking out of the windows? I'm not sure, but it is certainly something I will keep in mind for future similar paintings.

Enough of the internal soul searching... here are some pictures showing my progress.

Rough Drawing

Concentrating on the background after finishing the sky and trees

For this passage I was closely copying a photograph I had taken a few days previously

School finished, working on the playground now.

Bit by bit I worked through the characters

Keep painting...

... and painting

... and finally pull out the gouache paints.

The school is based on the old Corsham Primary school which is now the Pound Arts Centre - where I have my studio! Next door to me are two other artists, the superb Penney Ellis and the extraordinary Caroline Rudge. We have an open studio every Monday, so please feel free to drop by and say hello if you are in the area.

See if you can spot any of these animals in the playground. The two young rabbits might be hard to spot.

Woodland Party "Behind The Scenes" Final Instalment

For my previous posts click here, Part 1 and Part 2

Below are a series of progress photographs taken as I worked my way through the painting.

Moving on from basic blocking in of colour.

You can see here I am starting to get past the local colour stage and really moving into finding form using colour. For example look at the fox playing skittles. He is lit from the top by the warm glow of the lanterns (lots of cadmium yellow, yellow ochre and burnt sienna), however the majority of his head is facing away from the light so he is picking up the cool colours of the wood in shadow so (more prussian blues and greens).

I could have been more thorough by adding an aardvark and zebra.

By the above stage, I had just about painted the furry aspects of each critter to a suitable standard. Believe it or not, I had a folder of animal reference on my laptop that I methodically worked through from A to B (or badger to wild boar). I didn't move on to the next creature on the list until I had completed the one before it. I found it helped to break down the painting into manageable chunks by creating these small milestones to tackle each day.

It's hard to tell from the above photo, but by this stage I was concerned with the lack of depth in the image. I decided to darken the bottom edges with cool colours to hopefully lead the eye further into the middle of the scene. The bottom edge now acted like the sides of a stage design by framing the scene and providing more perspective. Note how in the final image below I darkened the sky in the far right background, again to push that further away from the tree in front.

I also completed the lanterns by deciding to keep it simple by using just yellow ochre where I could. I felt they would glow more if I depicted less detail, as if they are so bright they would be over-exposed in a photograph.

Woodland Party
Watercolour & Gouache
66 x 45cm

Job Dunn (pardon the pun)! I was pleased with the final outcome as it came very close to realising the fuzzy image I had rolling around in my head at the rough drawing stage. However I wasn't pleased when I had removed the painting from it's board, scanned and stitched it together on Photoshop, only to find I had forgotten to paint the skittle ball being held by the rat! As you can see I fixed that and then double-checked the whiskers on every animal, which is normally the thing I forget to do at the very end.

I hope you enjoyed this series of posts. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask, either on the blog or Facebook.