I finally started colouring a book that I had for a while but I was a bit intimidated to really start. Now that I’ve coloured a few pages I’m a bit more confident and hooked on this amazing colouring book by Hanna Karlzon.

Hanna is a Swedish freelance designer living in Umeå, Sweden. Everything she draws is by hand with pen and ink.  She designs patterns for interior design, wallpaper and textiles and also does commissions for magazines and other companies. Her work is quite unique and is inspired by nature, art nouveau, punk rock and 70’s design.

Hanna’s first colouring book, Daydreams was originally published in Sweden entitled Dagdrommar in May 2015. It has a hardback cover and contains 96 beautifully illustrated pages to colour. The images are printed on both sides and the paper is high quality and off-white in colour.

This book has been incredibly successful and is well known in the colourist world as a must-have book to add to your collection. Originally it was only available through the Swedish Pen Store, but now it is readily available outside of Europe from local online stores (see below).

Daydreams features Hanna’s signature whimsical artwork of delicate flowers, beautiful girls, birds and small animals, interesting insects and forest homes. There is some repetition in her style of birds and insects, but each page is still unique and gorgeous.

Hanna has since released a two more colouring books, Summer Nights (Sommarnatt) and Magical Dawn (Magisk Gryning). She is also about to release a new colouring book Seasons (Tidevarv) in August 2017. Each of her colouring books has also been published in Artist Editions books and Postcards. Both formats feature 20 images from the books, on single-sided, oversized art card (Artist Edition) or postcard sized art card. Seasons will also be released in as 20 Postcard. Winter Dreams (Vinterdrömmar) is the Postcard book that hasn’t been released as a companion to a colouring book. Each of these books is authentic but keep within her style.

I absolutely love this book. The pictures are unlike any of the colouring books I already own and the paper is just heaven to colour on. I first saw a review of Daydreams by La Artistino and feel in love, but the postage from Sweden was too high. Once it became available on Book Depository I ordered it so I could do La Artistino’s tutorials on Colouring a face and Colouring Shiny Hair. I left this book for ages, feeling really intimated by it, but continually admiring other colourists work. So I finally picked it up again, did a few tutorials and then a few more pages on my own.

I have recently ordered Summer Nights (Sommarnatt) and Magical Dawn (Magisk Gryning) and Maria Trolle’s The Twilight Garden (Blomstermandala).  I can’t wait to start colouring them, so stay tuned.

 

This was the first page I coloured with Faber Castell Polychomos Pencils. It was a while ago and I really wasn’t happy with how scratch my leaves come out and the blending of the background. I have since added some gold gel pen to the border and the birds and I feel better about it.

 

This beautiful lady was done with the help of La Artistino aka Peta Hewitts colouring tutorials, Colouring a face and Colouring Shiny Hair, using Polychomos Pencils. It was my first time colouring a person and I was thrilled with how it came out. The face really pops out of the page and looks quite powerful. I actually left the right side of her hair for months and only recently completed, so the it’s not as seemless as the left. I haven’t completed it the picture in hope of Peta bringing out another tutorial, which she has elluded to. I really recommend this tutorial if you want to learn how to colour people. Peta is really great at explaining her method so it can be easily replicated with any image of a face or hair.

 

This scarab was done with the help of a tutorial by colourist Iris from Color with Iris. The tutorials, Color with me – Scarab from Dagdrömmar is in three parts, using Polychomos Pencils, black posca pen, gold and white gel pens. I really enjoyed this tutorial and it did really instil my confidence back. I love the method of doing lay upon layer of pencil, which gave a wonderful rich colour. I also love the overall colour scheme, which helped me image how I can colour more of these gorgeous insects from this book. For the background, I used a black brush Faber-Castell Pit pen, rather than a black Posca pen. I have a feeling they are both as streaky as each other, which is more evident in real life. If you are also feeling intimated by this book, this is a great tutorial to get your confidence up.

 

I have never coloured gems before and Hanna’s books feature a lot of them. Peta (La Artistino) brought out a tutorial ages ago, Colouring Gemstones Two Ways, for the cut, multi-faceted gems and the smooth, rounded gems. In the tutorial, she explains how lighting effects the colours a gem picks up and gives a great detailed description on how to colour them. She used this image for her example of cut gems.

I coloured this with Polychomos Pencils and did some detailing with a white Posca pen. I decided to do all rubies and similar shades of red for the flowers. I am really happy with how it turned out.

 

I finally got to my title page of the book. By now I was feeling way more confident and went crazy with colour. I used Prismacolor Premier Pencils and white gel pen for details. I really prefer these pencils for this paper as they go on really smooth.

 

This page was completed with the help of Chris Cheng’s tutorial, with Kitty’s Dream Land Prismacolor Premier Pencils.  I really wanted to learn how to colour fur and absolutely loved her colour scheme. I love Chris’s tutorial and have done a couple of others. Although sometimes it’s hard to see which colours she’s using I just love her unique use of colour. I was so happy with how this one came out and is definitely my favourite picture in the book. It’s also Octavia’s favourite and she drew over the cat’s fur with blue pencil when I wasn’t looking. Luckily I was able to fix it.

 

This picture was adjacent to the scarab so I really wanted to do a black background again. I originally only used a cheap black pencil and then went over with a Prismacolor pencil. However, it was really uneven. After finally giving in to going over with a Pit pen I was much happier with it. The background looks much better then scarab since it has a thick layer of Prisma but I don’t think I wouldn’t do this again, since I wasted so much of that pencil. The rest was done in Prismacolor Premier Pencils, white and silver gel pens.

 

Now I feel way more comfortable colouring animals, the next two are a result of what I’ve learned. For both I used Prismacolor Premier Pencils and started with the backgrounds first. It was easier doing this first, but I’m not sure about the colors I chose. I haven’t used the Prisma French grey’s before, but I really love the shades to color metal and in the hare fur.

 

 

This is my last picture that I will do for a little while since I have new books to start. I tried to make the door feature look like it’s made of brass and silver and the moths to have gems and glass wings. Not sure I pulled it off but it was fun to do. For the wood background I used pastels first and then went over with pencil. Peta Hewit/La Artistino did a great video tutorial ages ago, which inspired this background. It was Easy Timber Background for Lost Ocean. The materials I used were Prismacolor Premier Pencils, White Posca Pen and Mungyo Pastels.

 

 

This book and Hanna Karlzon’s other books can be purchased from:

• Book Depository (free postage to Australia)
• Amazon
• Booktopia (free postage offers to Australia)

For a flip through, reviews, completed book check out these videos and posts:

• Chris Cheng’s video, Flip Through Dagdrömmar / Daydreams Coloring Book
• Peta Hewitt/La Artistino’s Colouring Book Review: Dagdrömmar with tips and coloured pages and blog posts
• Color with Iris Interview with Hanna Karlzon
• Color with Iris Book review – Daydreams Artist Edition and Dagdrömmar by Hanna Karlzon (includes video’s)
• Completed pages from Hanna Karlzon’s Coloring Club, DAGDRÖMMAR (DAYDREAMS) Coloring Book by Hanna Karlzon – All Pages 
• Anna Kraumannová video Completed Dagdrömmar (Daydreams) Coloring Book

Tutorials of Daydreams, by my favourite Youtube Colorists:

• Peta Hewitt/La Artistino
• Chris Cheng
• Color with Iris 
• Coloring with Alena
• Shine Bright Designs
• Julie’s passion for coloring
• Shirley XL. Y.
• IkasColorings