{"id":3229,"date":"2026-09-02T02:06:44","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T02:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/grids-of-whimsy-ashley-percivals-patterned-menagerie\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T02:06:44","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T02:06:44","slug":"grids-of-whimsy-ashley-percivals-patterned-menagerie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/grids-of-whimsy-ashley-percivals-patterned-menagerie\/","title":{"rendered":"Grids of Whimsy: Ashley Percival\u0019s Patterned Menagerie"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Cornwall-based illustrator <strong>Ashley Percival<\/strong> delights in reimagining familiar fauna with a riot of pattern and color. In his hands, poodles, rotund birds, and even boot-wearing insects parade through a wardrobe of vivid getups, each creature transformed by spirited surface design and bold palettes.<\/p>\n<p>Percival builds these characters with a blend of <strong>colored pencil, pen, paint,<\/strong> and <strong>digital tools<\/strong>, a hybrid approach that gives his textures and lines a lively, handmade snap. Rather than isolating a single animal, he often gathers multiple takes on the same species and arranges them in tidy, repeating grids, turning small differences in plumage, pattern, or pose into a playful study of variation. The result is a fanciful menagerie that treats common animals as canvases for cheeky motifs and chromatic surprises.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align:left\">Process and places<\/h2>\n<p>Recent travels shaped the most current work. Percival spent <strong>three months in Spain and France<\/strong>, immersed in nature, an experience that spurred a new wave of <strong>flocks of birds<\/strong>. His process leans on instinct and memory as much as observation. \u001cI don\u0019t think about the colors I use. It\u0019s all free flow. I sometimes look at an animal once to get an idea and then draw from my imagination,\u001d he tells <strong>Colossal<\/strong>. That looseness translates into exuberant palettes and patterns that feel both spontaneous and sure-footed.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align:left\">Collaborations and reach<\/h2>\n<p>Alongside personal projects, Percival frequently collaborates with brands, working with names like <strong>Ikea<\/strong> and <strong>Gucci<\/strong>, among others. He also keeps his audience close: new pieces and in-progress glimpses appear on <strong>Instagram<\/strong>, and fans can purchase prints via <strong>Etsy<\/strong>. Across these channels, the same signature elements recur\u0014confident linework, humor-forward styling, and animals pictured as ensembles\u0014underscoring how his patterned creatures thrive whether in a commercial context or on a print at home.<\/p>\n<p>By pairing everyday species with exuberant ornament, Percival invites viewers to look again\u0014and then again\u0014at forms they thought they knew. The grids may be orderly, but inside each square, color and character roam free.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:right\"><em>V\u00eda <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thisiscolossal.com\/2026\/09\/ashley-percival-animal-illustrations\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">thisiscolossal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cornwall-based illustrator Ashley Percival turns poodles, rotund birds, and boot-wearing insects into pattern-rich characters, often arranging multiple versions of a species in grid formations. Recent bird works were inspired by three months in Spain and France, and he notes, \u001cI don\u0019t think about the colors I use. It\u0019s all free flow,\u001d he tells Colossal.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-happening-now"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}