The Art Nouveau Colouring Book: Large and Small Projects to Enjoy (Search Press Colouring Books)

The book itself is paperback and A4 in size with a glue-bound spine. The images are printed single-sided and do not enter the spine. The paper is a good thickness and bright white with a little tooth meaning you can use just about any colouring medium you fancy. My water-based pens shadowed and bled a little but this isn't an issue because there is no image on the reverse. I found it very easy to blend and shade with my Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils. This book is part of a series and each book starts with 7 double-sided pages of coloured images that are contained within the book and then changes to single-sided black line images. This book contains images of all things Art Nouveau. It includes animals, flowers, leaves, fruit, and many more natural things. There are a number of beautiful, elongated flowing images of women, page borders, scrolls and banners, frames and much more. Everything is drawn in a characteristic Art Nouveau style that is really unmistakable. This book is unlike most other colouring books and is more of a collection of similarly themed images rather than a cohesive book that tells a story. Many of the pages consist of a number of small images grouped together on the same page that aren't especially related to each other. To begin with, I found this quite off-putting because I love books that tell a story, however, the images are very nice and are great for practising blending and shading with coloured pencils and alcohol markers because the images are printed single-sided. This book contains over 190 Art Nouveau designs.
In terms of mental health, this book doesn't have an awful lot of impact on it, though if you love Art Nouveau, it's sure to calm you down and focus your thoughts. Because of the variety of image sizes, it's a good book for those of you with fluctuating conditions because if you can't focus much you can just spend a few minutes colouring one of the smaller images and then complete the larger images on days where you're able to concentrate a bit more. The line thickness is consistent throughout and is medium/thin so you don't need perfect vision or fine motor control to be able to stay within the lines. The images vary in intricacy and detail levels with some having lots of teeny tiny spaces and others being much larger, open designs. This book doesn't have any full page designs, they're all small motifs that are grouped together so you can colour just one, or all of them on a page if you're feeling up to it. This is a lovely addition to any colouring collection and is great for practising colouring techniques

June 2015

This is an 80 page paperback book full of designs from the Art Nouveau period, including animals, statues, scrolls, nautical, LOTS of leafy vines, and more. I'm not a big fan of the style I have to say, but there are some interesting images to colour here and a variety of different objects rather than one subject matter. The illustrator, Judy Balchin, is a UK-based graphic designer, craft demonstrator and artist/illustrator extraordinaire. She has dabbled in the world of television, logo designing and even needle-felting, so has a lot of background and experience in the creative world.

Art Nouveau was popular at the turn of the century and is identified by its ornamental curves, whip-like lines, and asymmetry- some great characteristics for colouring book designs. If you're into blending plants and flowers, take a look at some of the pages in the book and notice how how leaves and stalks are heavily featured throughout. The paper quality is very good, thick enough for most non-alcohol markers and all one sided. An interesting thing about this book which I haven't seen before, is that the first few pages are filled with pre-coloured illustrations to give the reader pallet inspiration before they begin. I think it's an excellent idea as it shows you popular colours of the style and time period, which you wouldn't necessarily know otherwise. I'd recommend this book to colourists who have a passion for art; particularly sculptures, statues, stained glass, and nature. I'm sure fans of historical design would love it, as it seems to be very true to the period. Here are my finished pages. I absolutely LOVED the stylised typography at the back of the book, which I'm now using as my signature on all blog posts :) - See more at: http://colourwithclaire.weebly.com/blog/the-art-nouveau-colouring-book-by-judy-balchin#sthash.HRUZX2Xi.dpuf

Judy Balchin studied art at Cardiff College of Art. Following this, she specialised in graphic design at Kent Institute of Art and Design in Maidstone.
After working as a graphics assistant at the BBC Television Centre, she joined Adverkit International Ltd as a lettering artist. This began her love affair with letters, producing book jackets, advertising logos and television titles over many years. During this time, she also became involved in the craft world.

She has appeared on television, worked as a craft demonstrator, designed craft kits and run workshops. She has produced more than twenty books on various crafts and is the author of many articles for craft magazines. She continues to enjoy her creative world and is currently working on her latest book.