Tag: Botanicum

Christmas Colouring Project 2019

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria2 Comments

Happy holidays! Today I can finally bring you all my completed pictures from the Christmas period for 2019. Over the past month and a bit I have completed 11 Christmas themed pictures from 5 books in my colouring collection.

This year I experimented a bit more with watercolour and acrylic paints for backgrounds. I normally use exclusively pencils, as I am afraid to ruin the paper or opposing image. However, I had pretty good results and it was much quicker.

If you would like to see my Christmas colouring from past years, see my Special Occasions Galleries, which are linked to the original posts.

Romantic Country: A Colouring Book

The Christmas Present is from Eriy’s first Romantic Country: A Colouring Book. It was the last page I coloured and my favourite one in the bunch. I forgot how much I love the paper in these books, so I would like to do a bit more in them, as I have only really done seasonal pictures. I love that the ink is a light grey, which makes it a little easier to disguise the lines. You can see other pages I have coloured in this book from my up-to-do gallery.

For this page, I only used Prismacolour pencils and a white gel pen to cover some of the white lines. It was such a fun and easy one to colour and it was pretty quick because of the paper quality. There are quite a few Christmas themed pictures in Eriy’s series, so I may take a bit more time in these books next year.

Johanna’s Christmas

The following three pictures are from Johanna’s Christmas by Johanna Basford. This gorgeous Christmas themed book is true to Johanna’s intricate inky style and is her only book that is single sided. I actually did a book review of this book last December with completed pictures. So the rest of these ones will be added to my Johanna’s Christmas gallery.

I didn’t realise this first design was a Reindeer Christmas ornament until I was halfway colouring it. I originally had plans to add fireworks or something in the background, but the time I finished filling in the background of the design I decided to leave it. I had used Prismacolor pencils for the main features and a black Tombow brush pen for the rest. I found it quite spongy and blotchy on this paper. So I didn’t want to add anything else to the black on top. I’m happy with the overall colour choice but not so much with the execution.

This next Christmas scene is one of my favourites in this book. It has also had a similar design on the opposing page. This one reminds me of the Night before Christmas. I have seen this one done beautifully by quite a few other colourists. My favourite is by Chris Cheng, which she has done a video tutorial for. This page took me for ages, because I used a lot of soft layers of Prismacolour pencils, particularly for the leaves and background. I also got a bit stumped on colour choices too, so I tried to reuse pencils as I went to make a more cohesive result. The only other addition I used was a bit of white gel pen for sparkle.

The last page I did in this book is this simple Decorated deer head. Although it looks easy it wasn’t a little difficult, as it had a lot of stylised lines in the head, which were hard to disguise with Prismacolor pencil. For the colours, I was inspired by this picture by Ruby Art and this vintage card. The main design is quite small on the page, so I wanted to do a plain background of turquoise. I used some cheap watercolour acrylic paints, I bought a while ago from Eckersley. I mixed Viridian (dark green) with White and a touch of Sap Green. I applied it with a water pen and watered the paint down a lot, which made it easier to apply the paint onto the paper. I did have to do a couple of layers, so it would cover properly. I am quite happy with the result, as I wanted a bit of a textured look. Other than that I used a bit of silver gel pen for the ornaments.

Seasons

The few pages are from Hanna Karlzon’s Seasons. There are quiet a few Christmas themed pictures in the winter section of this book, so I have plenty to come back to next year. I actually had a review lined up for this book which is already coloured and filmed, so look out for that soon.

When I first started this double-page spread I was really enjoying it. I loved the oversized cat and dog and I think I did a pretty good job on the fur. However, once it came time to do the background things went a bit downhill. I first used Winsor & Newton watercolour paints, to add black-grey and purple. It looked pretty terrible so I went over with Prismacolour pencils, as well as gold and white gel pens. The result looks pretty terrible. I’m still getting used to using watercolour so I will have to practise a bit more. I probably would have been better off using acrylic, but at this point I hadn’t tried it yet.

This Tiny decorator also started off pretty well as 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.

My last page in this book is my favourite one I completed. It was definitely the most simple of the four but came out looking exactly how I wanted. I used Polychromos pencils, white and gold gel pen and Winsor & Newton watercolour paints. I improved a lot more at the watercolour effect for the background. I will still keep trying until I get better. I forgot to mention that the paper in this book took the watercolour really well and there was minimal to no buckling.

Botanicum

The following two pages are from Maria Trolle’s Botanicum, which I worked on while I was completing a series of pages for a book review I did last month.

I am pretty happy with this Round robin wreath. It took me a long time with Polychromos pencils, but with plenty of soft layers, it gave it plenty of depth. These pencils are easy to sharpen to a sharp point and don’t dull as easily as other brands, so it was much easier to get into the small spaces.

The Kitty-cat Christmas was a relatively quick one for the mediums I used, which included Prismacolor Premier pencils. Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer Watercolor Pencils, Derwent Inkense pencils and a white gel pen. I was surprised that I was able to glide over coloured leaves with a water pen to activate the watercolour background without disturbing the colour.

Sagor Och Sägner

The last page is from Emelie Lidehäll Öberg’s Sagor Och Sägner. You can see my previous book review and up-to-date gallery from this book.

I was a bit intimidated to start this one compared to the others I have worked on this season. I coloured it all with Prismacolour and then switched to black watercolour acrylic paints. I was a bit worried it would stain through to the other page, which is a double-page spread I would really like to do, but it didn’t at all. To apply the paint, I watered it down quite a lot and applied it with a water pen. This helped get it down a lot smoother, as it was quite dry. It took a couple of lays to get a nearly mat finish. I then used a fine line Posca pen to add the white strings, etc. I did have to keep cleaning my Posca pen that was becoming grey, but other than that it went over the black paint quite well and didn’t fade.

Book Review: Botanicum

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria4 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve done a colouring review, as I have been working in a couple of books for the last few months. The book I am reviewing today is one that I bought in Sweden last year on my Nordic Trip. At the time it was Maria Trolle’s most recent colouring book. Since purchasing it I had visited this book a couple of times, but I finally got to work on doing a series of completed pictures.

Botanicum is the fourth book by Swedish artist, Maria Trolle. I have the Swedish edition, but you can also find an English special edition (with 8 additional pictures) and a Dutch edition. She has recently also brought out a new colouring book Flora, which is on my Christmas list.

This book is the same format as Maria Trolle’s Twilight Garden/Blomster Mandala and Nightfall/Skymingstimman; and Hanna Karlzon’s colouring books. It has a hardcover, which has one of the designs that you will find in the book. Similarly to the line art, the background is also black, but objects have been filled in with colour. The English edition has a different cover image, which is also found inside the book. There are 96 pages inside, which are double-sided, on high0quality ivory paper.

Similarly to Maria Trolle’s other books, this book has a garden theme. However, this book takes us through a floral adventure through different seasons and includes some designs for Easter, Halloween and Christmas. There is also some new animal that we haven’t seen before, including seals, unicorn and dragons; and many more girls and fairies of various sizes. Another new feature in this book is that many of the pages have defined or lose borders. This book also includes several pages with black backgrounds and an index of both the flora and fauna you will find in the book. Since my book is in Swedish, I was able to find many of the Swedish/Latin names flowers and plant life quite easily, but I did have to use a translator for some of the animals.

This has to be my favourite of Maria’s Trolle books in my collection. I love the variety of intricate line art, new creatures, very pretty girls and seasonal themed designs. I love that the name of the flora and fauna is listed in the book, so I can make easy colour choices. Lastly, I love the bordered line art and some of the circular designs, which allows me to just colour within the boundaries of the artwork.

Below I have included a video flip through and photographs of all the pages that I have coloured, in order that you will find them in the book. These include 10 completed pictures, which I have coloured in a variety of medium, which I have detailed below. I have added all of these images to my Botanicum gallery, where I will continue to add newly coloured pictures from this book. If you interested to see my other reviews of Maria Trolle’s colouring books, see: Twilight Garden (Blomster Mandala), Vivi söker en vän and Skymningstimman (Nightfall).

The Name plate page in this book is quite a simple design. Since the line art was quite delicate I wanted to leave a clean crisp background behind the brightly coloured flora and detailed fauna. I spent my time trying to get the bird and the snail to look as life-like as possible. The flowers were a little easier since I was able to easily find examples of the colours of the flowers. I only used Prismacolour Premier pencils for this page, which works beautifully on this paper.

I coloured this Easter bunny for my Happy Easter Colouring for 2019. It was the second page I had coloured in this book. I really loved how it turned out, so I knew I really wanted to revisit this book. Since these flowers didn’t come in a variety of colours, I started with them. I was later able to use complementing colours for the rest of the picture. I always find this helpful when I have no idea where to start with colours. For this page, I used Primacolour Premier pencils and a white Uniball gel pen (for the blue flowers).

This Thumbelina in the garden scene is one of the pictures that have a defined border. It is straight, but my photo came out a bit warped. These Peony flowers come in quite a few varieties, but I choose yellow and orange to complement the small blue flowers. It took quite a while to colour this page with Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils. I tried to do many light layers to avoid hard lines coming through. I also used a white Prismacolor pencil to blend for highlights and a white Uniball gel pen for the blue flower and the bee wings. Polychromos pencils do work well on this paper as well and also have the added bonus of not leaving pencil dust on the page. This is probably my favourite of the bunch.

I coloured this Floral lady for my 6# Colouring Update, so it was the first page I coloured in this book. I tried a darker skin tone, which I did find a bit difficult. I think because of the numerous layers, I may have blended too soon. I used Prismacolour Premier pencils, which are my prefered pencils for this paper. However, you do have to be careful not to get pencil dust on the black background. Otherwise, if you try to rub it out you will remove the black a little. I don’t love this page because I found my pencils came out a bit waxy on the small flowers.

When I saw these Playful seals, I knew I had to do colour this page. I started with the background, trying to layer to make it appear to have a seafloor and expansive ocean. I’m not sure I pulled it off too well, but the rest came together well. I am happy with the seaweed and bright fish. I used Prismacolour pencils and a white Uniball gel pen.

This Resting Unicorn is a special page I coloured for my little girl, who is obsessed with unicorns. We had a few disagreements on the colour of the unicorn, so I left that until last. I spent time colouring each flower and its leaves exactly as it would appear in real life. They looked quite detailed before I added the rest of the elements and then they a bit flat. I decided on a white and electric blue unicorn to stand out amongst the sea of green, pinks and purples. It was entirely coloured with Prismacolour Premier pencils and a little bit of white Uniball gel pen for details.

This Little old town reminded me of the paintings of the old towns you for sale in Europe squares. I fell in love with the Elena Moskaleva version, so I tried to use a bit of watercolour as well. I used Derwent Inkense and Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer Watercolor Pencils. My version didn’t come out very good. I think I didn’t add enough colour before I activated the pencils. I went the page with Prismacolor pencils, which always work nicely over watercolour pencils. The paper took the water quite well and I had no buckling or bleed through at all.

I coloured this Halloween scene for my post, Halloween Colouring 2019, where you can read more about it. Its was coloured with Prismacolor Premier pencils. I did use Mungyo watercolor crayons for the background. It did come out a bit streaky and I tried to blend it and deep the colour with pencil over the top. I also used a Unibal white gel pen to hide some lines and add stars. It’s not my best work, but I am happy that it came out a bit less conventional than other Halloween pictures.

I was going to come back to this book for Christmas, but I decided to make a start on my Christmas colouring before reviewing this book. This Round robin wreath took me a very long time to colour. So many little elements and confusion on colour selection. I used Faber-Castell Polychromos, so that I could get into the little nooks and keep the line art sharp. Once the main image was completed I decided to go with a simple caramel wood. I just realised I forgot to add the wood grain, oh well. I did use a Derwent blender pencil for the background because despite the number of layers it was still quite ashy. I’m happy with the overall effect of the picture.

The very last page in the book and that I coloured is this Kitty-cat Christmas. It’s not a page I would normally choose because of the huge empty background. I started with the main elements which I used Prismacolor Premier pencils. Afterwards, I was faced on what to do with that huge empty background. So I used a cream Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer Watercolor Pencil and activated it with water. I then did some shading with Derwent Inkense pencils. Since it was hard to get into the little spaces around the leaves, I found myself brushing the water brush over the leaves. Luckily the Prismacolor pencil stayed intact. Lastly I used a lot of Uniball white gel pen to bring out some of the details on the Christmas ornaments and the cat’s fur.

Botanicum and Maria’s other books can be purchased from:

6# Colouring Update

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria16 Comments

I haven’t been sharing my colouring work for a while. So I thought I would show you what I’ve been up to. In my last colouring update (5#)  in July, I mentioned that I bought quite a few new books on my holiday, plus I had a few more from my last colouring book haul that I hadn’t started. So I challenged myself to colouring one page in all (or most) of my new books before I do anymore book reviews.

These pages are not in order from when I coloured them, just what I have photographed so far. These first four are from Fantasia, Forest Girl’s Coloring Book, Dromenvanger and Botanicum. I still have more pages from Mythomorphia, Smyckeskrinet and Momo Girl coming up in a future post. I haven’ t decided what book I will focus on after completing this challenge, since I actually bought a few more books recently, which I will also show in a future post. I wish I had more time for colouring and blogging, but this last month has been hectic with uni assignments and a potent respiratory virus. I’m hoping to get back on track in the next couple of weeks when everything calms down.

By the way, I have recently reorganised my Colouring Book Galleries and Colouring Book Reviews. They are now easier to see and access and are under my Colour tab on the menu bar. All new completed pages will be place in gallery of the book they come from, which may not appear in previous book reviews  you may of seen.

 

Continue reading “6# Colouring Update” →