I recently had a request to create a small set of Gruffalo cookies. It seemed fairly obvious that I should handpaint the designs after the illustrations for the book, but I wanted to make them a little different, or original somehow.
It was when I was considering which cutters to choose for the set that I hit upon the idea of fitting the characters onto woodland themed cutters. Not only would this give the cookies a varied shape, fit the theme, but also, happily enough, allow me to fit them more easily with each other onto the cushion padding for the tin, than if I'd gone with a bunch of circles.
So I started with circles for the little hints of Gruffalo.
I used a leaf with wide 'arms' for the wings of the owl.
Another leaf for the fleeing fox, one with lots of appendages to fit his paws into.
For the snake I used a cloud cutter - not strictly 'woodland', but it did have the wiggliness the snake needed. I felt it also looked a little like a woodpile, and had I had the time to create backgrounds for all these creatures, I'd have painted logs onto this!
And what about the mouse? An acorn of course!
"And the Mouse stood on the nut and the nut was good (and all sugary with a hint of Madagascan vanilla)."
For extra cookies I did the usual acorns, mushrooms and leaves, but I painted them in what I felt was a matching style, as you can see here. Simple washes of colour and 'messy' outlines in black. For all the black painting on these cookies I used Americolor black diluted with a little vodka.
And here is me creating the whole bunch of Gruffalo characters:
These videos took an AGE to edit as just speeding them up didn't work - had to edit out each time I dipped my brush in the paint and match my hands (roughly) to where they were before they moved. It's a bit messy here and there, but I like the effect!
