Winnie-the-PoohTime to read: 3 minutes

It seems inevitable that I included this book, written by A. A. Milne. His take on children’s fantasy and imagination, written through the eyes of a beloved stuffed bear, has helped set the standard for what a timeless children’s novel can be. While some people may relate most to the Disney version of these stories, my heart belongs to the original illustrations by E. H. Shepard which I have tried to recreate in my theme for May.

In a story inspired by his son Christopher Robin, the author first introduced Winnie-the-Pooh in a 1925 London newspaper. Christopher Robin had named his stuffed bear, as well as the other toys that his father’s stories revolved around. Initially it was called Edward, but after some time it was named after Winnie, a Canadian black bear at the London Zoo, and a pet swan named Pooh that was written about in an earlier book of poetry by the same author.

The illustrations were based off of another stuffed bear, owned by illustrator E. H. Shepard’s son Graham, named Growler. An early iteration that was based off of Christopher Robin’s bear was deemed too ‘gruff’ looking, which is how Growler became a model for the final illustrations.

The font I chose for this theme is appropriately called Piglet and I chose to misspell the words and mirror some letters to reflect Christopher Robin’s writing, as seen in the original illustrations in the book. Or, as Pooh puts it, about his own penmanship:

My spelling is Wobbly. It’s good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.

I haven’t experimented much with so-called Dutch doors. These are pages that have parts cut off to reveal underlying decorations. One example was the title page that I made for June 2024.

This month I’ve cut several pages for my dailies, framed by a watercolour painting of Pooh being stuck in Rabbit’s hole, helped by his friends.

I’m really pleased with how my paintings look this month. The paper of this journal is top tier for watercolour painting and the subject is irresistably cute.

At the time of writing this post I’m still enjoying the book, one story per day. I’m excited to start using this theme in a few days!