Picture books
Puddle Weather
A spread from a picture book about two friends who refuse to go inside when it rains.
Client
Fernhollow Press
Year
2023
Medium
Etching, watercolour
The project
The brief
Fernhollow sent a 400-word manuscript about rain, umbrellas and stubbornness. The pictures had to carry the jokes the text leaves out, and the book needed to feel wet without being gloomy.
How it was made
Thumbnails for all sixteen spreads came first, so we could see the pace of the whole book. I drew the rain as long scratched lines and kept the colour to one blue and one warm grey.
The result
Puddle Weather went into a second printing in its first year and was read aloud at the Brindle Street Library’s spring festival.
Sample image: Helen Hyde, The Shower, 1897. Public domain, Art Institute of Chicago.
Want one like it?
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