During the holiday season, I committed to colouring as many Christmas themed pages I could from my colouring book collection. I started at the end of November and just finished my last one yesterday. I managed to do nine pages (including two double pages spreads) from five different colouring books. Most of these books are Japanese colouring that I hadn’t started yet. The first thought is one of my Swedish colouring books, which I was happy to revisit.

To colour these images I used a variety of mediums, including Derwent Inktense pencils, Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils, Prismacolor Premier pencils, Touch Nice Watercolor Markers, Mungyo pastels, white Posca pen and a variety of gel pens.

This was a really fun project, that really got me into the Christmas spirit. I liked to imagine it’s snowing outside while sweating it out in the heat of summer.

Did you do any Christmas colouring or Christmas inspired art during the holiday season?

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This Scandinavian Santa is from the Swedish colouring book Emelie Lidehäll Öberg’s Sagor och Sägner. I used Derwent Inktense Pencils, some Prismacolor Premier pencils, gel pens and white Posca pen. I initially intended to do this one with just my Inktense pencil and water pen, but then I smudged red all over his beard and shirt. So I needed to add some Prismacolor over the top. I did find the paper did get a little wavey from the water, but with compression, it has improved.

This one was a fun one to do and research. I didn’t realise it was a Scandi Santa until I found some similar picture. I think this Santa walks from house to house with a sack full of toys and a small tree. If you want to see more from Sagor och Sägner Colouring Book, see my Book Review or Gallery of completed work.

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This adorable picture is from Kanoko Egusa’s Menuet de bonheur. I used Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils, a white Prismacolor Premier pencil for blending and a white gel pen. I did find the Polychromos pencils worked a lot better for me in this book than the Prismacolor pencils that I previously coloured for the Halloween themed picture. I did need the white Prismacolor for blending the background and some of the other elements as Polychromos are very hard pencils. I also found I needed to do 4 to 5 layers of colour to cover the white speckling in the paper.

I actually didn’t know these were chipmunks. After a few searches, I realised what they were so I could colour them correctly. I also didn’t know that mistletoe was white and holly was red. I love how this one turned out so much. It was actually nominated as a banner for the Secret Garden Facebook group that I am a member of. This was the first time my work made it as the daily banner, so I was very excited. I have not done a review of this book yet, but I have made a  gallery, where I will add completed works from this book.

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This is another one from Kanoko Egusa’s Menuet de bonheur. I used Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils and gel pens. I tried to cover the black lines on the animals as best I could and blended the gell pencils with the pencil. I wanted the picture to look like a set of designer home. I’m not sure I pulled it off as the wallpaper didn’t turn as well as I liked. I am happy how the animals look though.

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This disney image is from Inko Kotoriyama’s  Adult Disney Love’s gift Lovely painting lesson book (Full of love scenes) (Beauty and the Beast cover). It is the first page I have got to colour in this beautiful book. I used Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils and a white Posca pen to go over some of the lines and do dots. I tried to find the original image for this picture and I found a few versions, which I used similar colours from. I was a bit stumped when I finished Mickey and his friends. The line art for the flowers was quite faint, compared to the characters, but still needed to be coloured. I didn’t want to take away from the characters pop of colour, so I went with a simple blue and white colour scheme. I think I made the right choice, as they pop out of the background quite well.

I have not done a review of this book yet, but I have made a gallery, where I will add completed works from this book.

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This is from the Japanese Disney Coloring to decorate the four seasons (Boutique Mook no.1255).  I coloured it with Touch Nice Watercolor Markers from Wish. This picture is actually the size of a postcard and it doesn’t have an image on the back, so it was perfect to experiment with. I did find the paper didn’t take as well as I liked to the water and these pens did bleed through a little. They also blend through on my watercolour paper in my art book, which I experimented in. For the colour scheme, I stuck to the colours of the original vintage image.

I am not sure who is the author of this colouring book, but it is official Disney merchandise. I haven’t done a review of this book yet either. I will add all completed work to this gallery.

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This adorable Winnie the Pooh Winter Wishes image is also from the Japanese Disney Coloring to decorate the four seasons (Boutique Mook no.1255). This book is quite large so I was a bit worried how I was going to colour it, but I just did part-by-part over many days and I got it done. I really enjoyed colouring in this book. The paper is nice and thick and Prismacolor pencils work really well in it. I used about 3 layers minimum to cover the white speckling in the paper. I used Prismacolor Premier pencils, Mungyo pastels (background) and a white Posca pen. I ended up going over the pastel background with pencil, so I didn’t need to use as much pencil to cover it.

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The last picture is from One World Disney to Travel Coloring Book (Boutique Mook no.1236). This book is very similar to the previous book. The pages are quite large so I was a bit unsure how to cover this entire page. I ended up using Mungyo pastels for the background, with some white posca pen for the snow and snowflakes. For the rest of the picture, I used black fineliner, Prismacolor Premier pencils and silver gel pen. I did have to be careful with the black fineliner, as I found it left a slight shadow if I went on to hard. I haven’t had this happen in my other colouring books, so I was a bit surprised.

I’m quite happy how this picture turned out considering how simple it was. I haven’t done a review of this book, but I will add completed pictures to this gallery.