April 13, 2012

Color Palette Study: "Peter Rabbit" by Beatrix Potter

Artist, writer, farmer and land conservationist Beatrix Potter created the beloved children’s book Peter Rabbit. It was first published in 1902 by Frederick Warne. Her beautiful watercolors with pen and ink are sweet and endearing with colors inspired from nature. Her color palette subtly changes throughout the tale to support the emotions of the story.



Page 22: An Energetic palette–Peter eating fresh radishes
A wide range of colors (see above)–yellow, orange, red and blue add energy and pop to the soft greens and browns of her illustration. The colors reflect the excitement and joy Peter Rabbit feels as he stands in Mr. McGregor’s garden eating up the farmer’s vegetables.




Page 57: A Restful palette–Peter in a safe spot
Beatrix Potter creates a restful scene by painting a harmonious range of greens with soft browns and blues (see above). After a harrowing chase from Mr. McGregor, in this scene Peter Rabbit is momentarily safe while he peeks out from inside a wheel barrow. He spots Mr. McGregor and the gate.



1 comment:

Candy said...

Lovely blog post, and drawing inspiration from one of my daughter's favourite books, too! I love Beatrix Potter's work, just so whimsical and lovely. And the Miss Potter movie was quite delightful too.

(Found you via Haute Mamas Etsy team, blog thread)

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