Barrington artist Mary Jane Begin’s depictions of the characters from Kenneth Grahame’s classic The Wind in the Willows are on display at Newport’s National Museum of American Illustration, including her work on a new spinoff series for younger children called Willow Buds, shown above.

Mary Jane Begin / National Museum of American Illustration

NEWPORT

A few years ago, Mary Jane Begin got the kind of phone call every illustrator simultaneously dreams about and dreads. The caller wanted to know if Begin, a successful illustrator of children’s books, would be willing to illustrate a new edition of The Wind in the Willows, the Kenneth Grahame classic about a trio of friends — a mole, a badger and a water rat — who set out to rescue another friend — a toad — from his selfishly destructive ways.

Originally published in 1908, the book has been illustrated numerous times, notably by famed British illustrators Arthur Rackham and Ernest H. Shepard. Begin says she was thrilled by the chance to add her own name to the list, but also a little scared.

“It’s one of my favorite books of all time,” she says. “I mean, I’ve lived with those characters literally my entire life. At the same time, what could be more intimidating for an illustrator than following in the footsteps of people like Shepard and Rackham?”

Fortunately, worries about going head to head with some of her artistic heroes didn’t prevent Begin from accepting the assignment. Her version of The Wind in the Willows came out in 2002, in a deluxe edition published by Chronicle Books.

A review in Library Journal praised the book’s “richly textured” illustrations and lauded Begin for her ability to create characters that “exude personality.” A review posted on Amazon.com’s United Kingdom site went even further, calling Begin’s work “inspired.”

Now many of Begin’s original illustrations for The Wind in the Willows are on display at the National Museum of American Illustration in Newport. The show, which runs through Sept. 1, also features selections from Begin’s most recent project — a “prequel” to The Wind in the Willows that focuses on the childhood lives of Grahame’s four main characters: Mole, Ratty, Toad and Badger.

Dubbed Willow Buds, the three-book series is aimed at younger readers who may not be ready to tackle Grahame’s sometimes ornate prose. The first installment in the series, which chronicles the early years of Toad and Badger, was published this year.

“Basically, it’s an outgrowth of my work on The Wind in the Willows,” Begin explained during a tour of the exhibit last week. “While I was working on the (Grahame) book, I found myself wondering how these characters became friends in the first place. Badger, for instance, is virtually a recluse when we first meet him in The Wind in the Willows. How did this very private character ever get to know — let alone become friends with — someone as outrageous as Toad?”

Begin, who’s based in Barrington, said she was vacationing on Block Island when she realized how her Willow Buds series could bring the two characters together.

“I was watching my mother chasing my kids around the beach, when it hit me,” she said. “I could have Toad and Badger share a nanny. That’s the connection.”

Begin also drew on her Rhode Island roots for The Wind in the Willows.

In particular, Begin said that her portrayal of Toad — the wealthy, spoiled, thoroughly self-absorbed character around whom much of the book’s action revolves — is based on a certain wealthy, spoiled, thoroughly self-absorbed former mayor of Providence.

“I don’t know if I should be saying this, but he’s based on Buddy Cianci,” she said. “Most of the other characters in the book are based on friends and family. But I was really having trouble with Toad until I saw this picture of Buddy. And I thought ‘Aha!” there’s my Toad.”

Eventually, pictures of Cianci filled Begin’s Barrington studio.

“He turned out to be the perfect Toad,” she said with a laugh. “He has these wonderful eyes — the kind of eyes you might see on a smart but slightly malevolent child. And he has this habit of hunching down when no one is looking at him, then sort of enlarging himself when he’s the center of attention, that’s very toad-like.”

To prove her point, Begin gestured toward an illustration based on one of Toad’s best-known scenes — one in which he manages to elude a group of pursuers by speeding off in a stolen car. Trouble is, he can’t drive.

“It really does look a lot like him,” Begin said of the illustration, which shows Toad gleefully celebrating his escape while wearing a dapper pin-striped suit. “There’s even a little dark spot on his head where his toupee should be.”

Ultimately, the Toad-Cianci connection proved to be deeper than Begin could have imagined. As readers of The Wind in the Willows will recall, Toad is eventually caught and sent to jail for stealing the car. Cianci, meanwhile, was indicted on charges of conspiracy, racketeering and extortion in April 2001 — about the same time Begin was finishing her illustrations for the book.

“Here I was getting ready to send my illustrations to the publisher and the man who’s the model for Toad gets indicted,” she said. “What are the odds?”

Yet Begin also pointed to a possible silver lining for the ex-Mayor.

“In the book, Toad escapes from jail and winds up back where he started in Toad Hall,” Begin noted. “So maybe there’s hope for another Cianci run at City Hall.”

Though she clearly has an impish streak, Begin is not — at least not yet — a professional political satirist. Instead, she’s a much-acclaimed illustrator who’s known both for her meticulous technique and for her ability to breathe life into the most fantastic scenes and characters.

A good example is her illustration for “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn,” one of the most famous chapters in The Wind in the Willows. After an all-night search for Toad, Ratty and Mole encounter a mysterious figure who soothes their aches and pains before sending them safely on their way.

Based on Grahame’s description (“curved horns,” “kindly eyes,” “pan pipes”), the “piper” is often depicted as a benign version of Pan, the ancient Roman nature-god. Begin, however, wanted something more in keeping with the book’s animals-only storyline.

Her solution: depict the “piper” as a real-life mountain goat, but emphasize his otherworldly status by giving him shimmering silver-white fur and making him big enough to fill the entire frame of the illustration.

“That was a tough one,” Begin said. “Over the years, people have interpreted the scene in so many different ways that if Grahame were writing the book today, he’d probably leave it out. That said, I think my idea — that since all the characters in the book are animals, the piper should be an animal too — works both on a visual level and in terms of the overall story.”

Like many works in the exhibit, the “piper” image also has a depth and richness that’s closer to Old Master painting than it is to traditional book illustration. Begin said the effect stems from her technique, which relies on a combination of watercolor pigments and acrylic paints.

“It’s really a very traditional approach,” she said. “Every image is built up, layer by layer, so that the final illustration comes out looking very three-dimensional.”

The NMAI exhibit also includes selections from several of Begin’s other books. Some of the show’s most colorful illustrations, for example, come from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, a 2005 retelling of the magical coming-of-age story — this time with a young girl in the title role.

Another highlight is R is for Rhode Island Red, an alphabet book in which each entry is inspired by something quintessentially Rhode Island. (Q, for example, stands for quahog, while S leads to a discussion of Samuel Slater and the birth of Industrial Revolution.)

Begin, who was born in Pawtucket and attended the Rhode Island School of Design, said she was attracted to the project for two reasons. One was the chance to celebrate the often quirky character and history of her home state. The other was the opportunity to work with her Canadian-born husband, Mark Allio, who wrote the entries for each letter.

“Actually, I think Mark got the better end of the deal,” Begin said. “I had to stay home and do the illustrations while he got to travel around and find out all this great stuff about Rhode Island.”

In all, Begin has published eight books, beginning with Jeremy’s First Haircut in 1986 and including The Porcupine Mouse (1988), Before I Go to Sleep (1990) and A Mouse Told His Mother (1997). She’s also working on two more titles — the second installment in her Willow Buds series and another book for younger readers called Splash: The Adventurers of a Duck Explorer.

When not in her studio, Begin can usually be found at the School of Design, where she’s been a faculty member since 1991. She and her husband have two children — a 14-year-old daughter, Gates, and an 11-year-old son, Liam.

Asked why so many of her books have featured animals, Begin said that, from an illustrator’s standpoint, animals have a number of advantages over humans.

“First of all, you don’t have to worry about things like gender or ethnicity,” she said. “Of course, you can specify a gender if you want, usually through clothes or facial features. But it’s really a matter of choice. One of the great things about animals is that they’re relatively unencumbered by human expectations and assumptions. They’re blank slates. Besides, they’re just plain fun to draw.”

The display of illustrations by Mary Jane Begin runs through Sept. 1 at the National Museum of American Illustration, 492 Bellevue Ave. in Newport. Hours: Sat. 10-4 and Sun. 11-4, through Sept. 1; weekdays and after Sept. 1 by advance reservation only. Admission: adults $25, seniors $22, students with I.D. $15 and youths 5-12 $10. Contact: (401) 851-8949 or www.americanillustration.

org.

bvansicl@projo.com