Thursday, April 2, 2015

Art Thursday: Enchanted Forest: An Inky Quest & Coloring Book




Enchanted Forest: An Inky Quest & Coloring Book was released in February and was recently featured on NPR's All Things Considered. This is the second coloring book for adults by Johanna Basford, following Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Coloring Book.

On how people have responded to her books

My inbox was getting absolutely jammed with people sending photographs of all the different pages of the coloring book. And it's just amazing to see how so many people can take the same collection of images and make them so different and unique. And so I ended up setting up a coloring gallery on my website where people can upload their images and share them with the world and tell us what kind of colored pencils or pens they used. It's a real online community, I think.

Of course, adult here means more complicated, artful designs that remind me of textiles and fine art but are still colorable.

I'll admit I still enjoy coloring although I rarely give myself the opportunity. Previously, the best solutions have been some of the coloring books provided by Dover with their intricate designs. It's fun to have new, uniquely marketed options. I have a friend who likes to color, she finds it therapeutic, creative without much pressure, soothing to a stressed soul. I think one of these will be a birthday gift for her.

Some more images you can click on them to see them larger--there are also castles and other fairy and faerie type of imagery:





1 comment:

  1. I've seen these books everywhere and keep picking it up but then think - when on earth would I be able to do this? (And what if I wreck it?!) But looking at the gallery of variations people have created just by experimenting with color has made me think maybe this would be a good way to zen for a while. I'm particularly interested to see that it's not the picture-patterns that are encouraging the most creativity but the 'textile-like patterns' that cover a whole page. Interesting. Thank you for making me look closer.

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