Swirling vines, lush flowers and lacy leaves adorn the pages of this William Morris era coloring book. Each page is printed on bright white heavyweight paper and is one sided so you can use whatever coloring medium you like, although putting a sheet of paper behind if you are using pens or paints is essential. Each page also has a perforated edge so you can detach it, also a bonus. There are more than 45 pages in here and two pre-colored page sized examples to inspire, one of them on the cover. Inside the back cover is a page briefly outlining color wheels and how to combine colors to best advantage; other than that the book is your own to color in how you will as this is not one with pre-colored sections. Neither does it have blank parts to add your own doodles to, although a few pages might partly be customized in this way. Patterns include flowers, abstracts that are inspired by plants, designs that look rather like lace and even a page with clock faces and another with cogs which seemed to have come from another book. The whole has a romantic Victorian appeal, which made me think of vintage wallpaper and textile designs, not original but pleasing and well printed. Lines vary from thin to thick and are nice and crisp, no pixelated fuzziness in here. If you are a fan of this type of pattern, this is a good book to get as it ticks all the boxes for a quality, user friendly coloring book.
-- Rachel Hyde - Myshelf.com
This book contains over 45 images which are all printed single-sided and are perforated for easy removal for gifting, framing, or even before colouring to make it easier to get to all the areas. The book itself is A4, paperback and glue-bound. The pages are bright white and fairly thick and water-based pens didn't bleed but did shadow, though this doesn't matter as the images are printed on one-side only. The paper is lightly textured meaning it's ideal for using pencils too and you can easily build up a few layers for blending and shading. Because the pages are perforated, you don't have to worry about the borderless images entering the spine so you can colour all the way up to the edges without that horrid unreachable strip down the middle. The images range from swirly to floral, and most are repeating patterns that are quite similar to wallpaper, rather than natural scenes. The images include foliage, flowers, circles, swags, paisleys and more and they're all very elegant and just waiting to be improved with colour. At the back of the book is a page explaining the basics about colour including information on primary, secondary and tertiary colours, blending and shading, and colour schemes that work well including monochromatic and analogous schemes. This is great for the novice colourer to help you get started!
In terms of mental health, this book is great for those of you with fluctuating conditions who want a book that will adapt to your needs. The line thickness varies throughout from spindly thin to medium thickness so this isn't one for those of you with poor eyesight or fine motor control challenges but it's great for people who really want something to distract them and keep them focused. The level of intricacy and detail also varies but most of the images are fairly detailed and delicate so you'll definitely need a good set of sharp pencils or fineliners to get the most out of this book. It's a great book for those of you who find detail useful for keeping symptoms at bay and it's one to avoid if this sort of colouring increases your stress levels in any way. You will need fairly good concentration to really get the most out of this book though the difficulty level does vary so some images need a bit less focus. The swirling nature of the images, as well as the repetition and flowers makes this a great book for mental health because these things are very soothing and calming for relieving mental illness symptoms.
I would recommend this book for those with a fluctuating condition, who have good vision and fine motor control and like wallpaper-style repetitive patterns. It's great for those who use alcohol markers because the pages are single-sided and the perforations make page removal really easy.
* Lucy Fyles - Colouring in the Midst of the Madness *
