Mr Toad on his way to the wedding...

A friend of mine is getting married next year and wanted a drawing of Mr Toad in his car for the wedding invite. It just so happened I'd already drawn something appropriate (and here) so I just did some recolouring to match their established wedding theme and suggested more hearty shapes in the trees and here he is...

Poop Poop !

A bit behind on posting but here's a sneak peak at my process and contribution to the a little bit bunny blog. The topic this month is toad so I naturally couldn't resist having a crack at one of my favourite characters from one of my very favourite books!

I'm really enjoying approaching illustrations from a screen printed mix of limited colours approach. I'm also drawing my stuff with just the 3 colour layers in photoshop. It can slow things down a little but it helps to make you think about your choices. It's a great way to free up my colour thinking a little and fly by the seat of my pants more. I think the best aspect is that a limited palette of (in this case 3) colours, either against white or overlayed over each other to give darker hues, really confines your choices on how to approach the illustration. Sometimes too much choice makes me dither and fiddle with things so having a tightly defined palette as a framework on which to build forces me to try and make something look balanced and exciting with fewer components. Make the best of what you have.

And yes, the close up detail I've shown here really does show that Mr. Toad's scarf is missing a bit. I was desperate to have him in silk scarf and flying goggles but I didn't want the scarf bisecting his body. Heck, I'm playing my artistic license card on this one. It's like that because it just is! Poop Poop to all :-)