Tag: book review

Book Review: Seasons (Tidevarv)

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria3 Comments

I hope you all had a restful holiday break. Today I can finally bring you my book review of Seasons and the completed pictures that I coloured at the end of 2019. I received a copy of the Seasons and Spirit Animal colouring books by Swedish artist, Hanna Karzlon back in August. Since then I have been trying to work through Hanna’s previous books in order, which I had yet to start.

Seasons is Hanna’s fifth colouring book, which came out in 2018. It originally came out in the Swedish edition, Tidevarv. The format of this book is the same as the rest of her books, which you can see from my other reviews of her first two books, Day Dreams and Summer Nights. You can also see my more recent reviews of Magical Dawn and Smyckeskrinet (Jewelery box).

This book has a light blue hardcover with a black and white design with the addition of gold foiling. The paper is high quality and off-white in colour. The pages are double-sided and there are 96 pages of line art.

The theme of this colouring book is the four seasons, which have been brilliantly divided within this book. It starts with Spring and ends with Winter, following the seasons of the northern hemisphere. At the beginning of each section, there is a design with a magical potion of the essence of the season that will follow. True to Hanna’s style, there are plenty of exotic flowers, mushroom caps, bejewelled birds, insects and furry friends, pretty ladies, forest and water scenes. There are also quite a few pages dedicated to Halloween and Christmas.

I absolutely love the artwork in this book. I especially love that the book was divided by seasons, as I was able to easily choose colour palettes for the time of year. There are plenty of Halloween and Christmas inspired pages that you can refer to in the year or beautiful designs which reflect the current season your experiencing. I wanted to do at least one page for each season, as a few for the holiday season at the end of 2019. In total, I was able to complete 11 pages with a variety of media, which I have detailed below. I also made a video flip through with all the current completed pages. Future completed pictures will be added to my Seasons gallery.

The Nameplate page for this book is very pretty and detailed. It was a bit tricky for me to pick colours since I wanted to illustrate all of the seasons. I’m not sure I nailed that, but I am very happy with the colour I used. I only used Prismacolour Premier pencils and a white gel pen for details.

This Spring lassy was one of my most enjoyable to pages to colour. I love how delicate her face and clothing are. I normally go for gold or silver metallic headdresses for Hanna’s girls, but this one needed some soft lace, satin ribbon and soft spring colours. I was inspired by this French model and this spring colour palette. For the background, I did more of a bokeh effect, since there were quite a few small circled that decorated it. I tried to white them out as best I could, to keep the design nice and soft. I only used Prismacolour Premier pencils and a white gel pen for details.

The Summer sundown was a fun one to colour and use a bright summer palette. I’m not usually a fan of water scenes, as I never find mine very convincing. However, turning it into a sunset gave the opportunity to create a reflective effect on the water. Summer colour pallets are so vast, but I limited my inspiration to these two summer palettes: Blue-Pink and Orange sunset. I tried to reuse the same colours as much as possible, so it looked more cohesive. However, it also has so much going on, which also makes it more interesting to look at completed. My sky came out very smooth and vibrant with the Prismacolours. The water is a bit more course, as the muted blues don’t blend as smoothly. Again I used Prismacolour Premier pencils and a white gel pen.

The Autumn beauty is my favourite page of the bunch. I worked very hard on this double-page spread and it is probably the best face I have ever coloured in one of Hanna’s books. Colour choice was pretty easy since Autumn has probably one of the most defined palettes of all the seasons. I used these autumn leaves as my inspiration and purple ombre as a contrasting colour for the background. To give the stars, mushrooms and dots a more sparkly effect I only partly outlined or dotted each object. I think this is much more effective, then completely outlining them, which is something I usually do in these books. Again I used Prismacolour Premier pencils and a white gel pen.

The Wicked witch was completed for Halloween Colouring 2019. There are so many versions of this page by many other colourists. I wanted to use unconventional colours for this Halloween and I was inspired by this red-headed witch. I loved the smokey green background, which I tried to reproduce in my version. I used Prismacolor pencils for the main image, as well as a white gel pen for details and a black Tombow brush pen for the background

This Christmas giving double-page spread was revisited for Christmas Colouring 2019, in the winter section of this book. As I mentioned in my previous post, I started off really enjoying this page, until I got to the background. Then I took out my watercolours paints and things didn’t turn out as planned. I first used Winsor & Newton watercolour paints to add black-grey and purple background. It looked pretty terrible so I went over it with Prismacolour pencils, as well as gold and white gel pens. I am really not happy with the turn out of this page and probably should of used a different colour palette as well.

The Scandinavian winter was my major page for the winter section. I really wanted this page to be magical and reflect the Northern lights. I was inspired by this photograph of Finland by night. To get a smooth sky I did many soft layers and blended with white and pastel colours. I also used a Prismacolor blender pencil for the darker blue, which otherwise still look a little chalky. I coloured the darker objects last, to not smudge the lighter sections of the page. I used Prismalcolor Premier pencils and a white gel pen to cover black lines, stars and sparkles.

The Tiny decorator is another one I coloured for my Christmas Colouring 2019. I’m not quite happy with this page either. I envisioned using more pastel colours. I used Prismacolour pencils, which always work well on this paper. I then tried out my Winsor & Newton watercolour paints for a contrasting background. It also came out a little patchy, so I went over with a bit of pencil. This page also had a lot of small stars and spots, so perhaps if I didn’t cover them with so much gel pen it would have looked better.

The Folksy Christmas bird is my favourite page that I coloured in this book for the Christmas season. I switched to Polychromos pencils for the main objects, since the design was more intricate and needed a sharper point. They came out quite nice and smooth on this paper. For the background, I tried my Winsor & Newton watercolour paints again, which was much more effective then my previous attempts. I then used white and gold gel pens for the bell and the circular shape.

Seasons and Hanna’s other books can be purchased from:

Book Review: Magical Dawn (Magisk Gryning)

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria3 Comments

I’ve had Magical Dawn sitting on my shelf for so long. I bought it near two years ago when I ordered Hanna’s first three colouring books. Since I was waiting for Hanna’s two newer books, I thought I better go back to her third book and try out it.

Magical Dawn (Magisk Gryning) is by the Swedish artist Hanna Karlzon, published in 2017. I have had the pleasure to colour and review in her other books, Daydreams (Dagdrommar), Summer Nights (Sommarnatt) and most recently Smyckeskrinet (Jewelry Box). Each are just as gorgeous as the next and have a distinctive theme which flavour Hanna’s unique style. With the exception of Smyckeskrinet, I have the English editions of Hanna’s colouring books, since they are much easier to get hold than the original Swedish editions. I haven’t compared the books in great detail, but they are pretty much the identical.

This book has a musky pink hard cover with an black and white design with gold foiling. The beetle on the cover can be found inside the book, but is framed a little differently. The paper is a high quality and off-white in colour. The pages are double-sided and there are 96 pages to colour.

The line art in Magical Dawn was inspired by the magical creatures that emerge at the break of dawn. There are jewelled winged and four-legged creatures, lovely ladies adorned with jewels, sparkling crystals, mushroom studded abodes, hour glasses and potion bottles fuming with magic dust and smokey essences.

This is not my favourite of Hanna Karlzon’s book, simply because its extremely hard to choose one over another. It is probably my favourite if I have to compare it to the first three though. The designs are intericate, interesting, and inspired the wonder of magic. I coloured eight pages in this book and used alot of blue and purples. I guess since these rarer colours found in the natural world, they inspired a sense of magic to me. I also did a video flip through, which included all of my completed pages. Any new pages coloured in this book in the future will be added to my Magical Dawn gallery page.

The Title page is always my most dreaded page to colour in all my books and this one was no different. I was really nervous about colouring those smokey essences and all those stars. I am not convinced I pulled it off either. I went crazy with the white gel pen to cover the black lines. In the end it all came together, but I think I will have to find a new technique for stars and smoke. This this page I used Polychromos pencils and a variety of gel pens.

This Rocker Witch was not a picture I would normally gravitate towards and I really didn’t like the design when I first saw it. However, I wanted to try to make something beautiful out of it and I am pretty happy how she turned out. I put a lot of work into her skin and hair and I was able to appreciate her unconventional beauty. Probably the hardest part of this picture was colouring the owl, as the design was very detailed and not very lifelike. I tried to use some inspiration from a real owl for texture and colouring and was surprised it came out looking relatively decent. I decided on a black ink background, to give the central image a bit of pop. I used Prismacolor pencils, a white Uniball gel pen and black Tombow Brush pen.

The Starwalker is another picture that I have seen done a few times and found really intimidating. There was just so much background and so many little stars to colour. I decided to try a galaxy background using Polychromos pencils, white Prismacolor and white gel pen. It started off really great from the right, but soon enough I lose my rhythm, so its a bit streaky in some areas. For the main design, I used Prismacolor pencils and a white gel pen. I find those Prisma’s blend a lot better so they were ideal for blending the colours in this turquoise-purple dress. My inspiration for colours scheme is from this anime fairy (not sure of the artist).

The Stardust Hourglass is a quick page, to practise magic dust. I was going to do a background, but then I wasn’t in the mood for experimentation. I’m very happy how the stardust turned out. I found using a bit of neon pink really helped give life to do the sky/electric blue dust. I used Prismacolor pencils, as well as a white and silver gel pens.

The Serpent Sorceress is another page I have seen done so many times. I just loved her gaze and her beautiful face that looks freakishly like Angelina Jolie. I really wanted to do this page in bright red, get away from the blue and purple hues. I didn’t turn out how I originally imagined, which is probably a good thing. I spent a lot of time doing her skin and I was inspired by this gypsy-inspired model. I find it really difficult to do darker skin tones, the skin can get a little streaky and a bit patchy. This wasn’t so apparent until the page was completed. Other than that I am happy with her hair, eyes, lips, jewellery and snake. I also tried something a little different with the background stars, but still not convinced it was the best technique. I used Prismacolor pencils, white and gold gel pens.

This picture reminded me so much of Emerald City of the Wizard of Oz, which was my inspiration for colour scheme. I used mostly Polychromos for this page, since they have plenty of interesting greens. I only used a few Prismacolors to blend for lighter shades, as well as gold and white gel pen. It turned out pretty close to what I intended so I am happy.

My very last and favourite picture of the bunch is the Blue jewelled moth. It didn’t stand out as an uniquely magical design, so I wanted to use blues and purple-pink to inspire a sense of fantasy. I chose gold, soft and bright blue, fushia, purple, brown and peach colour scheme. I am really thrilled how it turned out. For the main design, I used Prismacolor pencils with a bit of white gel pen for details. For the background I started with prussian blue, light blue and grey Mungyo Watercolor crayons, activated with water. The background turned out pretty terrible, so I used alot of Prismacolor layers to get it looking more like a galaxy sky. I then used a white gel pen for stars, which gave it more pizzazz.

You can purchase this Magical Dawn or Magisk Gryning from:

Book Review: Smyckeskrinet (Jewelry Box)

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria3 Comments

This book review is on one of Hanna Karlzon’s most recent colouring books. I bought this book when I was in Sweden last year. I finally got around to colour some of these beautiful pages. I am really loving her books right now and intend on colouring through my other Karlzon books, while I wait for her lastest release.

Smyckeskrinet is Hanna’s fifth colouring book, which came out in 2018. It also cames in an English edition, Jewelry Box. The format of this book is the same as the rest of her books, which you can see from my other reviews of her first two books, Day Dreams and Summer Nights.

This book has a limestone green cover with an black design and gold foiling. The design on the cover doesn’t appear in the book, but has some similar elements that you will find inside. The book format is hardcover, with high quality off-white paper. The line art is on double-sided and there are 96 pages to colour.

This book is consisent with Hanna’s style, however it is themed is Edwardian house and its garden. Similarly to her other books, there is a large variety of beautiful girls, animals, flowers, jewels and inanimlate objects. However, these designs have an old world twist that makes this book quiet unique to itself. Consistent with the title, many of the designs are adorned with jewels, which gives the images a very anique feel. There is also quite a variety of images which take up entire pages, majority, or have quiet blank backgrounds, so you colour within the confines of the designs or make an elaborate background.

This is probably my favourite book of Hanna Karlzons so far. I felt the line art was more intricate and I loved the cute animals and beautiful headdresses. I wanted to experiement a little more then I usually do in Hanna’s books, so I have used quite a few different mediums to give you an good example of what works on this paper. Below I have included a video flip through and photographs of all my completed pictures in this book so far. Any future pictures will be added to my Smyckeskrinet (Jewelry Box) gallery.

The Name plate page was the last page I coloured since it was the one I was most worried about. I initially didn’t want to go with traditional colours for the peacocks, but when I started researching the various colours of their feathers I decided there was plenty of tones I could use to make them very pretty.

The main design was all coloured in Prismacolor pencils and a little bit of white gel pen. As for the background, I used Mungyo Watercolor Crayons. I had already experiemented with these crayons in this book and I was pretty happy with them. I used a combination of purple and light green crayon and activiated them with a water pen. I then went over the crayon with Prismacolor pencils. It did come out a little streaky, but overall I’m pretty happy with it.

I did the Jewelled Bettle and Garden Goddess as a two pages spread. I started with the goddess, which I wasn’t sure I really liked when I first saw. But I really wanted to try and make her beautiful and bring out all the aspects of her floral headdress to make it more volumious.

I used Prismacolor pencils and it took me quite a while to lay them down, so that she looked more three-dimensional. I think thats really the key to perfecting my colouring, the more soft layers the better the result. Then I decided to quickily do the Jewelled Bettle, since I used most of the same colours. I also used some white and yellow gold gel pen to bring out some of the details. I am not entirely happy with how I used them on the round and tear shaped jewels, but they do look better then left black.

Next I decided to try out a background that I had seen recently in a video on the Youtube channel Colouring with Olivier. I had actually purchased the Mungyo Watercolor Crayons after watching Oliver’s video review of them. I bought them off Ebay and they are quite an inexpensive alternative to Neocolor, which is very popular at the moment. I really loved Oliver’s Cracked Wall Background, so after watching her video I tried to recreate this myself for this two page spread. I used black, brown and lime green crayons with a water pen to activate. Intitally I went lightly with the crayon on the paper and activated it, then added extra color by wiping the brush directly on the crayon. Afterwards I used a sharp black pencil to add in the cracks. I am extremely happy how it turned out. Although its not perfect, it looks great overall as a two page spread and is quite a quick background to achieve. Another great thing is that the crayon didn’t blead through and there was minimum buckling on this paper.

The Jewelled Kitty-cat was a picture I feel in love with straight away. I used Polychromos pencils with some white Prismacolor to blend and white gel pen for sparkles. Something I always have difficulty with is whether I do the background or objects first. Only thing is background take so long that I sometimes feel less passionate about the overall picture by the time I finish it. The only downside to doing the opposite is that the pencil can stain the background and it can be difficult to erase. Luckily when using Polychromos you do’t have these problems so much. Unlike soft pencils like Prismacolor, they don’t smudge very much at all. They do requite alot of soft layers to get a vibrant color and not to ruin the tooth of the paper. I also like to used the white Prismacolor to blend and remove white speckling, which you can also do with other pastle soft pencils. Anyhow, thats pretty much how I got the depth to the sky and other objects, which really enthused me to use my Polychromos pencils a bit more.

The Black Swan Princess the first picture completed in this book, which I did back in September last year. It was dedicated to the late and great Katrine and which featured in my 7# Colouring Update. I used Prismacolor Premier pencils, white Posca pen for highlights and a black Faber-Castell Artist Pitt pen for the background. You can refer to my previous post for more details.

The Jewel Carriers was one of the last pages I coloured. I wanted use an Autumn colours palette, with bright oranges and deep blues. Since I was using Prismacolor pencils. I started with the background first, before don’t the flora and fauna. I really wasn’t happy with my color choice and wanted to give up on it. But once I added in the white gel pen and completed the pictures I didn’t mind it as much. Its not so pretty but it really packs a punch to your eyes.

This Astro goddess portrait is a relatively small picture and didn’t requite a background, so it was a nice quick one. It’s a really good design if you want to practice doing skintone and hair. I took my time, trying to give her skin a more deeper complection, which is more difficult for me on larger scale. I used Polychromos pencils, so I had to be very careful to be to do soft layers, but I think I am improving in not making such harsh lines on the face. I love how she turned out. I am not so happy with my background. The black lines on around the stars were too strong and don’t look much better with the gel pen. I think I need to find a new solution to this dilema.

You can purchase this Smyckeskrinet or Jewelry Box from:

Book Review: Dromenvanger

Published on by Vanessa GregoriaLeave a comment

Today I have a book review on one of the most popular and exquisite books in the colouring world, Dromenvanger. It was on my wishlist for a while and after one failed attempt of acquring it, I finally got my beloved copy.

Dromenvanger is by the Croatian artist, Tomislav Tomic. Tomislav is originally from Zagreb and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in his home town. He began illustrating books and magazines while he was still a student and has continued to be an illustrator for Croatian and UK publishers. Today he lives with his young family in Zaprešić. His artwork is known for beening exquistitly detailed and in Resnaissance engraving style. His subjects is often based on fantasy and mythology.

Dromenvanger is actually the Dutch edition to the original Croatian colouring book, Zemlja snova (2016). It translates to dreamland from Croatian and dreamcatcher from Dutch. Tomislav also brought out a second coloring book Vilin San (2017), which also came out in a Dutch edition, Sprookjesbos (Dutch edition). He work has also featured in The Offical Game of Thrones Colouring Book and the Pictura series, A Walk Through Paris, Coloring New York Jazz, and Coloring Paris.

If you live in Australia it is near impossible to get hold of the Zemlja snova, unless you spend a small fortune. It is only availale from Croatian publisher Fokus and some private sellers. However, since a Dutch publishing house acquire the rights, Dromenvanger has been more readily available. At the end of 2017 there was an issue on Book Depository, where only a small fration of the people who purchased Dromenvanger actually receive it. I was one of the unlucky people who had purchased it, but there was no copies left to sent out. Book Depository has yet to continue selling this book, which is still listed on their website. However, there are more private sellers selling this edition for a more reasonable price. I bought my copy from Ebay, when I found a price I was willing to pay.

Dromenvanger is a square shaped book, which is about 25cm by 25 cm. It has a soft cover, which features partly coloured picture, which you can find in the book. Both the inside front and back covers are blank. The paper is high quality, cream in colour and is relatively thick. Inside the book you can find 81 line art illustrations, many of which are double page spreads. The Croatian edition contains all the same images and you can see a more in depth comparsion on Colouring in the midst of madness.

So the reason this book is in such high demand is because the artwork is spectacular. As you turn the pages you will pass through cloud lands, enchanted forests, fairytale and underwater kingdoms and will come upon fairies, dragons, mermaids, unicorns and other mythical creatures. Each pages is incredibly detailed can be quite intimidating. But once you start filling in the page with colours it will come alive.

I found the artwork in this book to be quite unique, amongst the rest of my collection. There are so many creatures and sceneries, which I haven’t found in other books. Many of the single page images have large intricate borders. Most pictures include clouds in the backgroud, however there are quite a few without backgrounds at all, which you could draw in yourself. In this book I have primarly used Prismacolor pencils, which work beautifully on this paper. I found Polychromos didn’t work as well. I didn’t try watercolor, but I have heard this paper can cope quite well with waterbased media and won’t bleed through or shadow.

Below I have included a video flip through and all the pages I have coloured in order that you will find them in the book.  I have adding all these images to my Dromenvanger gallery, where I will continue to add newly coloured pictures to.

This Fairy Door is the first picture in the book after the Title and Welcome pages. Normally I would have coloured the Title page, but I wasn’t feeling very inspired the one in this book. So I coloured this first page as an introduction to this magically book.

I have seen this picture coloured by many other colourist and I wanted to do something a little different. I started colouring the building to look like it was made of sandstone and took advantage of the textured line art. I complemented the stone with purples, pinks and muted green. For the butterflies I got some inspiration from these Violette butterflies stickers. I am happy how the fairy and other objects pop out of the picture. I probably should of gone with a darker gold frame. I coloured this entirely with Prismacolor pencils and used a little bit of white gel pen for sparkly effects.

The Treehouse Palace was the first page that I stated when I returned to this book. I had no idea what colours I was going to use so I just started with the purple orange ombre sky. I tried not to rush or push too hard so that I could get a smooth texture. The white, soft pink and cream pencils really helped to blend in those more stuborn midsection in the pages. I was still stump on colour selection, so I just coloured all the trees, berries and wood. Then I was able to use colours that complemented what was already there. Gold is always an easy one for metal work and the dooms were coloured in a variety of bright colours to separate them from the sky. My last challenge was colouring the birds and I was inspired by this colourful ornamental bird. Overall I am happy with it, butI did find the large tree on the left looks a bit ashly, despite the amount of layers. I used entirely Prismacolor pencils.

This Pegafly was coloured for Octavia’s 4th Birthday back in April. She is obsessed with horses, ponies, unicorns, pegusus and pegacorns. There is one unicorn in this book, which is on a two page spread, but I prefered this pegafly because one page was do-able in a short timeframe. I coloured it entirely with Prismacolor pencils.

For the overall colour scheme I was inspired by the gorgeous artprint by Shannon Valentine. It wasn’t the easiest image to colour, and was a little intimidating as most of the images in this book are. The doted lines on the pegafly were good to know where to shade, but require many layers to cover. The flowers and plants were also very challenging because some were so simple and others very detailed. So to create more depth for the simplistic objects I added more lines for creases. For the pegafly I was inspired by the only other image of a pegafly I could find and this butterfly for wings. This is definetely my favourite of the lot that I coloured and Octavia was so happy with it.

The Princess of the hounds is another popular picture to colour. The image makes me think of a mediterranean kingdom during the Renaissance. So I used colours that inspired by that time period. I started with the sky again, so that none of the other colour pigments would get stuck in the paper. This took me the longest time to make sure the the sky appeared completely blended and smooth. Next I worked on the trees, trying to make them look textured. For the objects I was inspired by this fairytale castle, knight, and this variety of greyhoods. I wish that I used more vibrant colours for the knight, but other then that I think it looks pretty good now its all complete.

This Elf musican was the first picture that I coloured in this book back last year, which I wrote about in the post #6 Colouring Update. I don’t love it, especially since I coloured a few more in the this book and improved alot since then.

The Griffin is the only picture that I coloured entirely with Polychromos pencils. For the colour scheme I was inspired by Realm of Tranquility Card by Anne Stokes. I am really not happy with this picture. I really didn’t enjoy using Polychromos in this book and I don’t like the colour scheme I chose. The Metallic silver frame also didn’t turn out as well as I hope. I also made a big mistake with the moutains that I drew in. I probably should of done a few more layers before using a blender pencil, which really made it look scratchy. On the bright side, I am happy with the griffin and the water backgroud.

You can purchase this Dromenvanger or Zemlja snova from:

Book Review: World of Flowers

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria2 Comments

World of Flowers is the newest book by colouring evangelist Johanna Basford. I received this gorgeous book from Marco for Christmas and I finally started it this last month. I had been putting it off a little because sometimes I get a little sick of colouring flowers. However, I actually had quite a lot of fun with this book. It has quite a bit of variety and very different to the flowers in Johanna’s other books as you will see.

So if you have been living under a rock you may have not heard of Johanna Basford. But I doubt this would be the case if your a colourist. This is Johanna’s seven colouring book (not including all the artist edition, journals, calendars, etc). It was only published in mid December 2018 in both the UK and US. I have the UK edition, like the rest of my collection. As they are readily available in Australia and online. From what I have read in the past I do prefer the UK editions, but if you would like to see a side-by-side comparison of this book, see this video by Colouring in the Midst of Madness.

World of Flowers is the same format of most of Johanna’s other colouring books. It is a square shape, sized at 25.1 x 25.1 cm. Like all the UK editions, it has a soft cover with a dust cover over the top. The cover is bright white, with black inked flowers and some rose-gold foiling. You can find the same flowers inside the book, but not in the same formation. However, the inside cover and does have the same design that you will find in the book. Inside this book you will find 80 pages to colour with a variety of new designs. The paper is ivory in colour and medium thickness. It has the same paper that you will find in Johanna’s later colouring books ei. Magic Jungle, Johanna’s Christmas. Toward the back of the book there is a page to test your mediums and a page that extends, which is double sided.

The floral designs in this book are gorgeous and as I mentioned, is a lot different to what we have seen before from Johanna’s other colouring books. Since flowers are the subject of the book they are much more detailed and vary in shapes, sizes and design style. Flowers aren’t the only things you will find in this book. You will also find succulents and other potted plants, magic potion bottles, butterflies and other insects, household objects and furniture, fairy homes, etc. The designs range from the usually wreaths, wallpaper and mandalas, to garden scenes, busy shelving, large and small circular and square designs. There is just so much variety that you won’t feel like your colouring the same stuff that you have come across previously in her books.

So as you guessed by now I do love this book. I did find some of pages with the larger spaces a bit intimating because I don’t love doing large backgrounds. However, if your like me you can skip some of these pages or just do put in more effort to the suspended objects and they will speak for themselves on the ivory paper. Something I really loved was the last couple of pages that pull out, which I would like to return to in the future.

Below I have included a video flip through and all the pages I have coloured in order that you will find them in the book. I have only used Prismacolor Premier pencils and a couple of gel pens so far. As you will see these pencils work very beautifully on this paper. I don’t see that there would be any problems with other harder pencils or water colour, so long as you are careful. There are plenty of examples by other colourist using other pencils, so I recommend checking out Instagram and Pinterest for inspiration.

The Title pages is always a challenge for me and I usually come back to it last. I wanted it to be an explosion of bright colours, which complemented each other. I also wanted to use different techniques for each flower, so they didn’t look so similar and flat. I am quite happy how this one turned out and it makes me happy when I open this book.

The Name plate pages was also another one I was stumped on because the flowers were so tiny, so it would be difficult for them to pop out of the paper. I started with a navy and coral colour scheme and added some complementary colours as I went. I also added some gold gel pen to cover some of the little black dots and lines, which really brightened it up.

This gorgeous selection of Flower motifs are not my colour scheme, but rather the from the mind of the amazing Chris Cheng. I started following her four-part video tutorial when I started this book, but I ended up coming back to right at the end. They just took me so long, but it was well worth it. So many layers went into it, which is why they look so stunning. She also done another gorgeous tutorial of a flower wreath. Peta Hewitt also did a tutorial for the same picture, so I still have to do decide which one I will do at a later date.

This Alchemy Garden is another one of the last picture I did. I took my time adding many layers to the background, flowers and bottles to try and make the objects look more three dimensional. I am happy with most of the elements but now I’m wishing I did a stone wall for the background, as it looks a bit bare. For the magic potions I was inspire by this Chris Cheng’s Fairy Potions from Fairy Miracles. This was my first attempt at something like this, but now I think I can tackle a few more magic potions in Hanna Karlzon’s Magically Dawn, which I’m yet to start.

This Sunflower and Tulip is the first page I that completed. I started with the sunflower and I was very disappointed in it until I finished the tulip. I only wanted to use a few colours for each and with both side-by-side it has the effect that I wanted. The page beside this has another two flowers with the same frames, so I plan to do those in red and green to complement this page.

This Flower Fairy Garden is the second page I did and it took me so long. I was thinking of doing a grey purple stone frame, but by the time I got this far I just wanted to move on to something else. This picture remind me a lot of some of the double page spreads in Secret Garden. If you see some of the pages I did my Secret Garden gallery, you can definitely see an improvement in both my colouring and Johanna’s flowers. These flowers were a lot more interesting to colour and I like how oversized they are.

If you’re interested in purchasing World of Flowers you can find it from:

Book Review: Fairy Tales

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria6 Comments

Hello friends, today I have another colouring book review for you. Fairy Taleshas been on my wish list for a while, so I asked Santa to bring it for Christmas and it is just as sweet as I could of imagined.

Fairy Tales is by the freelance artist and illustrator, Emelie Lidehäll Öberg. Emelie is based Timrå, Sweden and has a background in graphic design and communications. If you want to know more about her, Color with Iris did a great interview with her. It talks of her life as an artist and how she began creating colouring books.

Fairy Tales actually the English edition of Emelie’s first book Sagolikt (2016)
and was published in April 2017 . Emelie has also published Sagor Och Sägner, En Sagolik Vinter (postcard book) and Hem ljuva hem. I actually have Sagor Och Sägner, and did a book review quite a while ago (see book review and gallery). Since Sagor Och Sägner is one of my favourite books I was sure that I would love another book by Emelie. Unfortunately for many, there is currently no English edition of Sagor Och Sägner, however Fairy Tales is alot easy to hold off (see end of post for distributors), and is quite similar in theme and style.

Fairy Tales has a soft cover that features one of the illustrations found in the book and is decorated in soft pinks and limestone green, with gold foil accents. The inside covers also have french flaps which open out to feature many of the designs found inside the book. This book is square and measures 24.9 x 24.9 cm. It contains 96 pages of gorgeous illustrations, which are printed double sided on high-quality cream paper. The pages are able to lay quite flat, which makes colouring and photographing pages quite easy. I did find that this book can handle both soft and harder pencils quite well, as well as water soluable pencils, with no bleed through.

The line art in the book is inspired by Swedish fairy tales and is whismical and true to Emelie’s unique style. There are woodland animals, sweet doll-like girls, quite an array of birds, wallpaper designs, wooden structures, teapots, tea cups and plenty of flowers and sweet foods to colour. All-in-all there is alot of variety, so you don’t feel like your fliping through she same designs throughout the book. What makes Emelie’s work unique is the that many of the elements in the pictures are quite oversized, which can be a bit intimidating if you haven’t coloured her work before. However, as you will see from pages I have worked on, the illustrations really come to life with a bit of colour and little bit of shading.

Below I have included a video flip through of Fairy Tales, which includes all the finished pictures that I did. I have also included five full sided photographs of the pictures I coloured with some details on what I used. These are in order as they are found in the book.

The Name plate page was not the first page I coloured and to be honest not one I expected to get to. There are so many elements in this page and that I was a bit overwhelmed. But I started colouring each picture in colours that came naturally and slowly I was able to use complementy colours for the pictures I wasn’t sure about. Its not perfect but I am happy overall how it turned out. I used Prismacolor Premier pencils, which work beautifully on this paper and don’t need to many layers to get a nice result.

The Princess and the Frog is one that I was really excited to bring to life because I just love everything about the design. Since I had already experiment with Derwent Inktense pencils in the book, I decided to try them out again. So I first layed down one or two colors for each element with the Inktense pencils and used a water pen to blend. Then I went over the top with Prismacolor Premier pencils to give a soft, chalky and vibrant look. I found that the Inktense pencils were also quite helpful for forming clouds, since I am really terrible at drawing them in. I also used a white gel pen to bring out some of the details and cover some of the black lines. If I could do this page again, I may give a bit more distiction to parts that are submerged in the water. But other then that I’m very happy with it.

The Storybook Mansion reminded me of a grand Swedish house. For the colour scheme I was inspired by the Korstäppan Hotel and this bright floral print. I decided not to do a background, as I just wanted to do something colouring, fun and quick. I used Faber-Castell Polychromos, which also work lovely on this paper. To blend I did use a white Prismacolor pencil and the Derwent blender. This picture wasn’t ovely complicated to do, but the large scale of the flowers really make it something special.

The Pup Prince was one of the pictures I just had to do in this book. I don’t often come across dogs in my colouring books and this one was just so regal and elegant that I had to give it some colour. This is one of the few pictures that I knew the colour scheme before I coloured it. I just wanted the background to be fairly simple so that I could make sure my pup would stand out. The hardest thing was giving the pup the furry texture. I don’t think I nailed it because I found it quite hard do a short hair. I was inspired by this Rodesian Ridgeback by EscyKane. Mine doesn’t come close to this artwork, but then again this illustration isn’t mean to be true to life. I used Prismacolor Premier pencils. I was going to use a Slate Grey Posca for the background, but changed my mine at the last minute, since the tip wasn’t thin enough to get inbetween the flowers. Initially I wasn’t happy with this picture, but once it was finished and I looked at it with fresh eyes I didn’t mind it so much.

The Mole Family was the very first picture I coloured in this book. It is definetely my favourite of the bunch. It took me a bit of seaching to work out what animal was being depicted in this picture, since I havent’ come across these furry friends in Australia. But once I realised what they were I had to makes sure they were very flurry and just as cute as the real thing.

Since this is the last page in the book I thought I was experiement with Derwent Inktense pencils. So I coloured the entire picture with with Inktense and activated it with water. I then went over it with Prismacolor Premier pencils, to add brighter colour and depth. I found this method is a hell of a lot quicker, produced vibrant colour and makes it easier do create an more interesting background. The only downside is that it can look a bit scratch in some areas where I wasn’t as careful. I found this paper really didn’t buckle much and I had no bleed through. Well actually there is one spot on the backside of this page that had a faint blue spot. However, I think I did by accident when I lift the page and it would be very easy to cover up. To cover the black lines in some aspects of the picture I used a white thin tipped Posca pen. Its not perfect but its just so magical and I love it.

If you’re interested in purchasing Fairy Tales you can find it from:

Book Review: Menuet de bonheur

Published on by Vanessa GregoriaLeave a comment

Before I finish out the year I wanted to bring you my last colouring book review of the year. I have been working on this book for a little while towards the end of the year and its was one of my goals of 2018 to do a review for this beautiful book.

Menuet de bonheur (Minute of Happiness) is a Japanese colouring book by Japanese artist Kanoko Egusa. I originally bought this book sometime last year from Amazon Japan, as it was hard to get hold at the time. It was quite pricey, but I couldn’t help myself since it artwork is just spectucular and its become one of my most prized book.

The artist, Kanoko Egusa is from Sendai-shi, Miyagi prefecture (3 hours north of Tokyo). She studied design and drawing at university and became a freelance graphic designer and later an illustrator. A few years ago she was asked to create a coloring book, which lead to the release of both Menuet de bonhear and Rhapsody in the Forest in 2016. Both of these books have become very popular within the colouring community for Kanoko’s unique style and her adorable of animal illustrations. These two books have also been published in Dutch editions, however the Japanese edition is not too hard to get hold off. This year Kanoko was also featured in Colouring Heaven Magazine for the issue Secret World of Animals Special and she also published Waltzes for the Seasons Colouring Post card Book. I haven’t heard if she will be bring out another colouring book, but I’m sure it would make many of us very happy. 

This Japanese book has a soft cover, with a lite dusky pink removable dust cover, which is decorated in a collage of beautiful animal images found inside the book. It has 92 pages which are printed on both sides. The paper is white, medium quality. It is not very thick, however watercolour pencil can be used with care. The texture of the paper does take some getting use to as it is not smooth like other books.

The illustrations include cute domestic and woodland animals in both natural and human-like scenes. There is quite a bit of variety in terms of theme and style of the images. There are scenes in the home, the city, the forest, garden, mandalas and collages and there are also 18 double page spreads. There are a few themes in the book, which include the birth, market place, countryside, in the garden, summer holidays, halloween, christmas, Parisian culture, Japanese culture and marriage. Another additional extra at the back of the book are two postcards and five memory card/oraments that you can colour, which is printed on light brown paper.

I adore this book and I highly recommend it if you love colouring true to life woodland creatures in more domestic settings. My only issue with this book is the paper, but after colouring a bit in it I have gotten use to the texture.

Below are the images I have coloured in this book so far. I have included my most recently pictures as well as the others I coloured for last years for Christmas and Halloween colouring.  I have also made a video flip through, which features all the completed pictures.

This first picture is the one that brought me back to Bonheur de Menuet. I always like to colour the title page of a book, so I have something to see when I first open it. It also takes away some of the inital fear when I first go to start a new book. Since I already started this book last  year I was eager to get to this page first. 

I used Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils for this page. This pencils work well on this paper and don’t need to much layering to get a good result. I really had a nice time colouring this page and bring each element to life. Since wanted this picture to flow I coloured the fruit and animals first since I knew what colours to use. Then I coloured the rest of the elements with colours that would contrast eachother. I also tried to reuse as many of these colours to be more harmonious. I find this technique works best for me as I’m not a great planner of colour schemes. 

The next page I coloured was this adorable bunny fashionista. I switched to Prismacolor Premier pencils, which I hadn’t used in this book since Halloween. I really didn’t like how these pencils previously worked on this paper. However, I am more experienced now and have learned to colour with many light layers. So this time around I really enjoyed using Prismacolor and continued to do so as you will see below. This is another picture which I didn’t know which colours to use. So I started with the each item of clothing and slowly used contrastly colours for each to complement the last. I decided to colour the bunny with grey blue fur like adorble little guy. 

This next picture I did for my daughter, who is obsessed with ginger cats. I enjoyed colouring this page the most, but it probably took the most time. I modelled the background on this farmyard picture. It took me a while to find the right picture to inspire my background and the rest was easy from there. The grass however took forever. I tried not to rush it to give as much depth as possible. The stars of the page, the kitties, I left until last and although they are a tiny part they are definetly the most important and gorgeous part of the picture. I had again used Prismacolour which work like a dream on this paper and was great for layer and blending. 

This last picture is probably my least favourite of the bunch. I had high hopes for this page of goats but it just didn’t come together like I imagined. It was a bit diffcult to make all the elements cohesive and the background is a bit vanilla. So I was really happy when this page was done. Besides Prismacolor, I also used a white Posca for the fur and details. 

These last pages were done for Christmas and Halloween projects last year. The very first picture I coloured in this book was this Halloween picture. I used Prismacolor pencils and it was ok for the small details but the sky was a disaster. I really didn’t like the way the pencil had layed down on the paper, but in hindsight I was probably pressing too hard.

The next page is a very special one for me, since it was acutally my first page that made it as a daily banner for the Facebook colouring group that I am a member of. I used Faber-Castell Polychromos, a white Prismacolor Premier pencil for blending and a white gel pen for details. This page taught me about that mistletoe was white and holly was red, since I thought it was the other way around. I also found out after extensive searching that these are chipmunks, which we don’t have in Australia. I really liked using Polychromos pencils on this paper, but I tried to be careful since these pencils are quite hard and the paper is quite thin. I also coloured the adjacent page with Prismacolor and quite a bit of gel pen. I am quite happy with both.

This book can be purchased from:

Book Review: August Reverie 2: Epic

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria9 Comments

It’s been a while since I have written a colouring book review that wasn’t Colouring Heaven issue. So today I have a new review of a book from one of my most recent colouring book hauls. I decided to focus on August Reverie 2: Epic, which has the most beautiful array of artwork. I bought this book on impulse and I’m so happy I gave it a chance, since its not like an of the other books in my collection.

August Reverie II: Epic – Fantasy Art Adult Coloring Book (Volume 2) is the second colouring book illustrated by Chinthaka Herath on behalf of Vivid Publishers. I haven’t got the first book, August Reverie: Adult Coloring Book, but just like the second one, it has been very popular among the colouring community. Both books are quite similar in style and genre. Chinthaka also has a third book coming out on behalf of Vivid Publishers. I’m not sure if it will be similar, be here is a sneak peak of one of the possible designs. I don’t know much about this artist, only that he is the owner and art director of Intense Media and resides in Kandy, Sri Lanka. Vivid Publishers is also based in Sri Lanka in Kandy, so I’m assuming they are all in the same. This publishing house has also released one other book prior to the August Reverie, which may or not be by the same artist, Wild Animals Adult Coloring: Absolutely Amazing, Stress Relieving, Wild Animals. I’m not sure if it’s very popular, since I haven’t heard much about it but has great reviews on Amazon. 

August Reverie II: Epic is a soft cover colouring book, which is glue bound. The artwork on the front and back cover gives beautiful examples of completed pictures that you can find in the book. You can also find more completed pages by the artist and colourists on the Vivid Publisher Instagram page.

Inside the book there are 24 hand-drawn fantasy illustrations (not including the name plate or contents page). Each design is assigned a name, which can be found on the contents page and there are page numbers on the back of each page. All of the pages except for one features a beautiful women adorned in jewels and most are surrounded by flowers, animals companions, or heraldic frames . There is only one page that does not feature a woman, instead it is a beautiful hummingbird surrounded by flowers. Some of animals companions you will find in the book include Butterflies, Bumble Bees, Dragonflies, Birds, Lion, Unicorn, Fish, Dragon, Bald Eagle, Jaguar, Dolphin and Squirrels. The flowers that you will find include Tulip, Rose, Aster, Peony, Dahlia, Petunia, Forget-Me-Not, Gazania Rigens, Henryi-Clematis, Zinnias and Jasmine. The theme of the book is royalty and dreams, which really comes through the fantasy and regal designs. The artwork is really stunning and is quite detailed, making it easier to know where to shadow and highlight. Additionally, at the the back of the book there are also two pages from August Reverie (first volume).

The pages are all one sided, so there is no need to worry about bleed through. However, paper is very thin and is only really appropriate for pencil, markers, gel pens and pastels. It is highly recommended in the book that you use thick paper or cardboard behind the page you are working on to protect the followings pages, especially when using markers. I assume if you use any water on this paper it would instantly buckle and would not be tolerated. The paper is bright white paper and does have a bit of a shine to it and quite a nice tooth. I recommend Prismacolor Premier Pencils or a softer pencil, just because I fear a harder pencil,  like Faber-Castell Polychromos, may ripe the paper. I do have a firm hand, so a softer hand may be more successful using harder branded pencils. Pastels are another media that are great on this paper, which I employed in one of my own completed pictures. I was able to get quite a few layers on this paper and I didn’t get to the point where the paper wouldn’t take anymore. However I did have to be careful to colour on a flat surface, as the ends of the pages tend to curly or bend if your not careful. So greater care had to be taken when colouring near the edge of pages. The pages also show great indentation from where I coloured on the other side, which is why its so important to protect the rest of the book with some at least 1-2 pages behind your work. At the back of the book there are 3 blank test pages where you can test  your art media.

Both this book and the first volume is available in PDF form, for those that prefer to print out their colouring books. You can purchase the PDF book from the Vivid Publisher’s website. Additionally if your did purchase the physical copy of either book from Amazon, you can get a free PDF copy from the website.  I bought mine from Book Depository and I am still waiting to hear back if my purchase qualifies. So I recommend sending a message to Vivid directly if you purchase yours elsewhere.

Some other bonuses on the Vivid Publisher website (via Youtube), are video flip through of both books and videos of the artist colouring his work. There are currently five videos of Chinthaka colouring pages from August Reverie 2: Epic, which are speed colouring with commentary. He also regularly does colouring contests with free PDF’s of pages from the books, as well as promotional sale prices for the books on Amazon.

Below I have included my own video of August Reverie 2: Epic flip through, which includes 4 completed pictures. You can also see these completed pictures below, with commentary on what I used and my inspiration behind my colour choices. After completing this pictures I am still very much in love with this book. My only issues with this book is that the thinness of the paper and although the tooth is lovely I was not able to cover those stray hairs with pencil. In some pictures is brought the hair to life and in others it came across a little too prominent. Other then that the tooth of the paper is lovely and the artwork is just spectacular. Any more pictures that I colour from this book in the future will be added to my gallery for August Reverie 2: Epic.

Continue reading “Book Review: August Reverie 2: Epic” →

Book Review: Colouring Heaven Misfits Special

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria9 Comments

This months Colouring Heaven magazine released in Australia is the Misfits Special (issue 35).  It showcases the art of White Stag aka Terra Bidlespacher. I wasn’t sure if I was going to keep buying this magazine every month, but when I saw this issue I really liked the quirky artwork and wanted to see how I would go colouring this style. I really enjoyed it, so I have brought you another colouring book review for today.

White Stag aka Terra Bidlespacher is an American artists, based in Pennsylvania. She is known for her lowbrow, pop surreal, gothic fantasy art.  Her unique style is characterised by the strange and cute girls and creatures, in scenes that are both intriguing, creepy and sometimes humorous. Her artwork mainly features she misfits characters painted in acrylic, but she also does drawings using ink and graphite. She has produced a series of Misfits colouring books with featured her original artworks. There are currently 10 full size colouring books and two mini colouring books. Most of these colouring books explore different themes, including aliens, zombies, unicorns and halloween. For more information of where to purchase White Stag’s colouring books see the end of this post.

I don’t currently have any of White Stag’s colouring books in my collection, so I was very happy to see her work featured in this months Colouring Heaven magazine. The issue features a compilation of 40 designs taken from White Stag’s colouring books, so there is quite a variety in themes of themes, styles and characters. The issue itself is the same format as always, matt cover (that you can colour), 40 line drawings on single sided thin-medium paper, with titles for each picture. This issue only has the names of the artworks and no other information about each work. I appreciate this anyway, as I  can google the original artwork to glean inspiration for backgrounds, colours, textures and light sources. This issue also features some Christmas themed pictures, so I will be sure to return to this book in the future.

For this issue I coloured three pictures and used a varieties of mediums, including water soluble materials.  I also made a video flip through, which is up on my Youtube channel, along with more video of colouring book flip through with completed pictures. You can also see more Colouring Book Reviews and my Colouring Galleries and my Misfits Special Gallery on this blog.

 

Continue reading “Book Review: Colouring Heaven Misfits Special” →

Book Review: Colouring Heaven Anime Special

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria10 Comments

The most recent Colouring Heaven magazine issue to be released in Australia was the Anime Special. I really loved the artwork in this book and after colouring a few images I thought I may as well do a little review as well.

Colouring Heaven Anime Special is Issue 34 and it was released in Australia at the beginning of July this year. In the UK it came out a couple of months ago, so I was already looking forward to this one. The artwork in this issue is exclusive designs by the  Singaporean artist Desti from Collateral Damage Studios (Singaporean based studio).  According to Colouring Heaven, she is a self taught artist and was influenced growing up by Japanese anime and manga. She was recruited by CDS and was commissioned to create designs for Colouring Heaven, which feature both traditional themes of manga and some recurring characters from the studio. You can find Desti’s artwork on her Instagram, Pixiv and  Deviantart accounts.

This issue is the same format as the other Colouring Heaven magazine issues. There are 40 line drawings on single sided paper, with titles for each and a little blurb for most. The paper is white thin-medium quality, which takes pencils very well. So as for this issue, it features beautiful anime girls and explores a variety of themes. The designs feature Japanese iconic styles (ei. Lolita), special occasions and festivals (e.i. Valentines day, Tsukimi ), folklore characters  (ei. Yuko-onna, Kitsune), Anime archetypes (Meido) and there is even an anime Alice in Wonderland. Typical of Colouring Heaven, most of the pictures have a little blurb explaining the concepts behind the line art. I really appreciated this in this issue, since I am not well verse in anime or Japanese culture. It was not just educational to learn about the festivals, fashion and folklore, but helpful to identify different characters.

All in all I am very happy with the Anime Special issue. The art work is gorgeous and well thought out. I did find it challenging to colour anime but it was fun to try something new and learn about a different cultural genre. I only coloured three pictures so far from this issue, but I see myself coming back to this book for Christmas, Valentines and Easter or just add some colour to this beautiful pictures.

I have made a flip through video of this book and have included below large photos of each of the three images I coloured.

 

Continue reading “Book Review: Colouring Heaven Anime Special” →

5# Colouring Update

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria17 Comments

Today I have to show you all my new books that I have accumulated since my recent holiday. I knew I was going to be coming back with at least a few books, but I didn’t expect to pick up a few more since I got back. Nevertheless I am very excited to start colouring these ones as well as the last from my last colouring book haul.

Continue reading “5# Colouring Update” →

Book Review: Skymningstimman (Nightfall)

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria12 Comments

This beautiful book is the third colouring book is by Swedish artist Maria Trolle. I bought it when last year on our Euro Trip 2017, when making a Quick stop in Heisenberg. I am ashamed to say its taken me nearly a year start colouring in this book. I am currently back in Scandinavia and on the look out for her next book, Botanicum.

This book is the same format at Twilight Garden/ Blomstermandala and Hanna Karlzon’s colouring books, since they are all published by Pagina Förlags. It has a hard cover and 96 pages, which are printed on double sided ivory pages. This book is also available in the English edition, called Nightfall, which is identical except for English titles, blurb and copyright. I have already reviewed Maria’s first two colouring books Twilight Garden (Blomstermandala) and Vivi söker en vän. Check them out if your interested in Maria’s colouring books and a bit more information about the artist herself and the format of the books, as well as my completed coloured pages.

Continue reading “Book Review: Skymningstimman (Nightfall)” →