The Wind in The Willows - Location, Location, Location

Just been trying to think about creating the 'scene' for the little cretins. I've been looking at nice settings and backdrops, and I think I'm going to create a summery woodland area. I want to stress the formation of trees, and grass, and a nice spot of water for Ratty to be rowing in. Also a nice blue sky wouldn't go a miss. I've been trying to illustrate how this might be formed, and how this will create a composition. 

Although this picture above is a fairly poor example of construction, I just wanted to see how shapes would emerge a scene. As you can see, the water, grass and hill compliment each other, they leave a nice crisp edge over one another, this is kind of how I used to work a few years back, around the time of my Foundation course. I want to try a Photoshop version too, using coloured blocks, we'll see how that goes...

Wind In The Willows - Preliminary Drawings and Stuff

For a new project, I am to make a book cover for the world-renowned 'The Wind in The Willows'. It sounds very exciting to me, because I can finally focus on something that involves a finished project in the form of a book sleeve! I have started off by doing a few drawings and sketches, and one or two collages, just to try to grasp the feel of the project and the little rascals' personas that I am going to be working with over the next few weeks.

Some of these were done just to experiment with new materials, and some just went really crazy with a pen (or should I say I went really crazy with a pen), but I really enjoy drawing and sketching. Drawing I just lose control of what I'm doing and sometimes the results can be really unpredictable, but I also like to draw from observation and I have a 'realism' side to me too!

 Froggy, born from cut-up Christmas cards!

Sometimes I look back over what I've done over the week and laugh at my own drawings, forgetting I did them. I think I sometimes need to get into a different mood to understand the humor I've accidentally made to properly comprehend it. It could be a good idea to use some of these silly drawings in the future, maybe make the final cover from them.. Maybe..