Colourful Watercolour Designs for Frog’s Bucket List Greeting Cards

29 March 2026 | Frog's Bucket List

I’ve been working on some colourful watercolour designs over the last couple of weeks. I decided that I would like to produce a range of Frog’s Bucket List greeting cards using some of my existing illustrations. However, to make the greeting cards extra special, I felt that I would need some additional design elements. Here’s a sneak preview.

Frog’s Bucket List Background

Frog’s Bucket List is my series of cute, cartoon-style, watercolour frog illustrations, featuring two characters: Frog and Frog. It’s something that I’ve been working on for nearly three years now. It all started out with a few froggy scribbles in the summer of 2023. They just sort of fell onto the page and now they won’t stop coming! I published my first book, which you can buy here, and I’m currently working on my second.

Please feel free to visit the official website to find out more about these charming little froggy characters.

To complement the book series, I would eventually like to offer a range of Frog’s Bucket List merchandise. And that’s where the greeting cards come in – because I can’t think there would be anyone who wouldn’t like a greetings card with a frog on it.

So, I’ll be working on producing some greeting card designs in parallel to the next book.

In the next few sections, I’ll show you how I went about creating the colourful watercolour designs. And I’ll talk about the art materials I used for these additional design elements.

Pencil Sketches

I have filled three A4 pages with the small colourful watercolour designs. The designs include various shapes and symbols (stars, hearts, circles) as well as party-related items (balloons, cupcakes, candles). I also sketched nature-related illustrations (flowers, insects, leaves), sports and games equipment, arts and crafts items, Christmas designs – all sorts!

I used Daler-Rowney hot pressed watercolour paper this time, with a 4B Derwent Graphic pencil.

Generally, I prefer cold pressed watercolour paper because I like texture; cold pressed is textured, whereas hot pressed is smooth. My sole reason for using hot pressed then is because it’s easier to scan for a clean, white background. It’ll just be so much easier to digitally snip out the individual images, and therefore better for greetings card designs.

A close up of some of the pencil sketches of additional elements for the Frog's Bucket List greeting cards by Ruth Burton.

My reason for a 4B Derwent Graphic pencil: softness. I can draw light, go over with pen and then erase the pencil marks without leaving a trace. In my experience, I’ve found Derwent Graphic pencils to be soft and creamy, and therefore very pleasing to draw with. They don’t smudge if you keep it light. Equally, I would have used any other brand of pencil in the 2B to 4B range.

Also, Derwent pencil won because it was nearest.

Pen Drawings

After drawing dozens of little pictures in pencil, it was time to draw over these with a water-resistant black pen. This is important, because I’ll be applying watercolour paint after the drawing stage and therefore don’t want the pen to smudge.

Some of you may be familiar with my preference for Uni Pin Fine Line pens and to be honest, I am open minded to try other pen brands. However, my loyalty to Uni Pin Fine Line pens has arisen purely because they haven’t run out of ink yet! To the point I am wondering whether there is some sort of pen witchcraft going on. I have drawn an excessive number of frogs over the last three years, and I am still on my first set of pens. I don’t understand where all the ink is coming from? So I can very much vouch for their staying power.

Here I am drawing the outline of a birthday present:

Ruth Burton outlining the pencil illustrations with a black pen for the colourful watercolour designs.

And here’s a sneaky peak at the pen outline designs, after I’d erased the pencil sketches:

A close up of the additional elements outlined in pen for the Frog's Bucket List merchandise by Ruth Burton.

Colourful Watercolour Designs

Time to open up my Royal Talens Van Gogh watercolour paintbox again. This is where the illustrations really came to life. I’ve used cheery, uplifting colours to match Frog and Frog’s joyful personalities. This photo doesn’t capture how exciting and inviting my paint palette looks in real life:

A paint palette of colourful watercolour paints mixed by Ruth Burton artist.

I used a Pro Arte Prolene paintbrush, size 2. It’s pretty nice to work with, smooth and easy to control.

Here’s me painting a balloon in the colour of Frog green*:

Ruth Burton painting a balloon illustration using green watercolour paint.

*not actually ‘frog green’

And here are some close ups of the finished colourful watercolour designs:

A close up of some of the colourful watercolour designs by Ruth Burton. There are illustrations of balloons, presents, party hats, candles, cupcakes and party poppers.
A close up of some of the colourful watercolour designs by Ruth Burton. There are illustrations of sports equipment, games pieces, leaves, paint splotches and moons.
A close up of some of the colourful watercolour designs by Ruth Burton. There are illustrations of Christmas presents, toys, shells and fireworks.

Next Steps

Next steps are to get the designs scanned in so that I can incorporate them into some greeting card designs. When I feel like doing computer-work, I’ll be designing products. When I want some non-screen time, I’ll be back on with illustrations for the next Frog’s Bucket List book. That’s my plan anyway.

I’m back in a watercolour phase.

Take care, lovely people. I’ll be back soon – hopefully with some greeting cards!