Review of "Unwind in the Wilds" a Colouring Book by Derwent

  There's a new colouring book being sold at Art Friend. It's "Unwind in the Wilds" by Derwent and the illustrations within it are by Sarah Taylor. It's retailing at $18.50 (or $16.65 if you have membership). Go buy yourself a set of Coloursoft coloured pencils while you're at it. (What do you mean I have an obsession with Coloursofts... Shhh~)

  It's a colouring book based around a theme on nature... Lots of little critters- bunnies, bugs, owls, deers, song birds, swans... Lots of leaves and trees... There are some pages with just repeating patterns.

  The first few pages are really interesting, too. There's a little guide on how to blend coloured pencils to achieve different tones of colours, and some super basic colour theory. And then you also have two fully coloured pages to give you an idea on what you can do. 

  And scattered throughout the book are a couple of little Complete-It-Yourself pages. For example, one has an owl and you have to draw its feathers and hat. I haven't attempted any of those kind of pages cause when I am drawn to my colouring books, I usually am just craving to handle some colouring materials. So I wouldn't be in the mood to draw. There are other fun activities in the book, too.

Like mazes...

And item hunts...

  Some of the drawings are two-pages spread, and we all know what happens when that's the case... The middle part of the drawings get swallowed up by the binding. *sad face* But I'm happy to say that most pages are single spreads, and some even have nice borders so they'd look wonderful if you cut them out of the book to frame. I prefer to keep my pages IN the book, but to each his own, eh?

  And here's a quick flip-through of the book:

  I coloured a really cute mouse with just less than seven colours:

Yep. Mostly greens, blues, and a yellow. The mouse is actually orangey-red. No browns were used.
Even the background is red plus dark blue. No browns or purples..

And here's a song bird. One of the advice that Sarah gave was to not be afraid to leave certain areas white. That's why I left the flower-y patterns on the bird's throat white.

I rather like the page left this way. Pretty birb.

  Wanna' see another awesome colouring book? Try Enchanted Forest.

Book Review: Enchanted Forest

  "Enchanted Forest" by Johanna Basford is a gorgeously beautiful colouring book. People have complained that her previous book "Secret Garden" had beautiful drawings in it but was printed poorly. Even though I cannot say much about that because I do not own that book, I can say for certain that "Enchanted Forest" was well above what I had expected.

  The paper within the book is a semi-gloss paper that takes coloured pencils and markers very well. The cover of the book is delightful, with gold details on the front, and even the inside of the cover has illustrations. The actual cover looks to be made from recycled cardboard material and is of a toned-brown colour. I also just love it when the protective cover and the actual cover have two completely different designs. :)

  The illustrations within the book are very well printed. All the lines are crisp and clear. My only complain is that some illustrations go across two pages, and some parts of the drawing gets swallowed in the middle.

  The book takes you on a journey through a wonderful forest, in search of hidden animals, keys, and nine square tablets with symbols on them to unlock the castle door at the end of the book. A surprise is hidden behind the castle door, so if you want to find out what that surprise is for yourself, don't watch the video till' the end!

  In all, highly recommended. Delightful book to have in your hand.