I’ve got some frogs eating ice cream for you this month! As you may or may not know, I’m working on my next Frog’s Bucket List book ‘Summer Holiday’ and this will be one of the pages. It’s a rework of an earlier watercolour frog painting which you can find in my portfolio. I’ve been reworking a few of the old paintings and so I thought I’d give you a sneak peek.
Frog’s Bucket List – ‘Summer Holiday’
My second book in the Frog’s Bucket List series is called ‘Summer Holiday’ (my first being ‘Christmas Fun’). And I’m feeling lots of summer vibes creating these illustrations!
The book is taking slightly longer than I anticipated, however I am nearly there – only a few more paintings to go. After that, the frog illustrations will need to be processed and arranged into beautiful digital pages, ready for printing! All going well, the book should be published by the end of the year. I realise I said that this time last year (oops) in a very similar blog post to this one, but hopefully worth the wait?
In the meantime, feel free to visit the official Frog’s Bucket List website for more information on my froggy characters, Frog and Frog.
Reworking Old Paintings
As I mentioned last year, the way Frog and Frog look now are slightly different to how they looked when they first fell onto my sketchbook page back in summer 2023. And so while I like the subject matter of some of my previous Frog’s Bucket List artwork (e.g. frogs eating ice cream…), I would like the illustrations to look consistent in the book.
The paintings for Frog’s Bucket List ‘Summer Holiday’ have been done in either 2025 or 2026. And I think how I’ve drawn them over the last two years has pretty much reached a steady-state. I mean, I have drawn more than 650 frogs at this point.
Although, I recognise that I still have some way to go before I reach Charles M. Schulz’s staggering portfolio of 17,897 Peanuts comic strips.
(Just trying to calculate how much space I would need to repurpose to store 17,897 frog watercolours. It’s about 100 paintings per 8cm, so roughly 14-15m of shelf space? Essentially a floor-to-ceiling wall of shelves, then. But on the face of it that probably wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows. That’s good to know.)
Anyway, I digress.
The painting I have just reworked is the ‘Ice Cream’ one. It’s a book of summer holiday bucket list activities, so it can’t not feature ice cream!
Frogs Eating Ice Cream
The key to reworking this painting is not to lose the essence of the original. It’s just about enhancing it to make it even more fuzzy and warm. I have it next to me as a guide and for inspiration:
Looking at my original painting of frogs eating ice cream – what do I want to keep?
Well, I like the face-on profile. Many of the Frog’s Bucket List illustrations show Frog and Frog from a slight sideways angle, so I’m happy for this to stay face-on. I think that’s a big part of the charm of this one.
Also, they are holding hands. That’s super cute so I’ll keep that. And I’m happy with the ice cream choices. Classic.
(Frog actually has an ice lolly; got to be inclusive and represent both ice cream and ice lolly communities!)
Things I want to enhance?
I like that Frog is wearing a hat, so I’ll have Frog wear a hat as well.
And I think I’ll max-out the beach attire, they’re going to be in swimwear and flipflops for that froggy-beach look.
Then the final tweak – I’ll have them looking at each other, lovingly. To squeeze extra cute.
Sketching and Pen Drawing
I used a Derwent Graphic 4B pencil (sometimes I use 2B, but thought 4B would show up better for you to see).
I didn’t use a light box to trace the original this time. I needed to start from scratch because the frog proportions were too different to their current formation. 2026 Frog and Frog have longer legs.
Here it is as a pencil sketch:
And this is it drawn up in pen:
Watercolour Painting Comparison
Now to add the watercolour paint and watch it come to life. It’s a slightly wider colour palette in the new version, mainly because I’ve added Frog’s hat which is a light brown colour. The increased use of blue and yellow paint enhances the summer vibes too, which is exactly what I was hoping for.
Here is the original again so that you can compare:
And here is the final, reworked version:
Far too cute.
So there you have it, a reworked painting of frogs eating ice cream. And nothing says summer like frogs eating ice cream. I hope you like it.
I’ll get back to my ‘Summer Holiday’ watercolours now, I’m super excited to see this one get printed!
Take care and look after yourselves in this froggy heatwave.