Fairy Tale Korean Illustrations – Hanbok – Coloring Book Review

Buy from Etailer
by Woo Na Young
Style: color inspiration images, Contains Extras, double page printing
Format: Hard back

Fairy tales reimagined with a Korean twist and Korean traditional dress

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Fairy Tale Korean Illustrations  – Hanbok  -Coloring Book Video Review

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Fairy Tale Korean Illustrations  – Hanbok  – Coloring Book Review

Regular readers will know that any scent of  Alice in Wonderland just makes me swoon.    Of course, a quick glance at the cover of this Korean fairy tale coloring book immediately shows an interpretation of  Alice in Wonderland in a different style and dress.       The cover is quite intriguing and when I seen it,  I was not sure what to expect.

Not knowing what a Hanbok was I wandered over to Wikipedia who describe it as “…traditional Korean dress. It is characterized by vibrant colors and simple lines without pockets. Although the term literally means “Korean clothing”, hanbok usually refers specifically to clothing of the Joseon period and is worn as semi-formal or formal wear during traditional festivals and celebrations”

Armed with my knowledge of what a Hanbok was, the cover and the contents of the book started to make sense to me.     This is a book of fairy tales that has been re-imagined with the characters in Hanbok style clothing.

Cover & Layout

The cover features a “Hanbok” version of  Alice in Wonderland which is colored and has an aged appearance to it with it the color palette.   Text on the left hand side in Korean presumably states the title of the book and this is repeated on the spine of the book.   The dark colored spine wraps to the back of the book.    A simple blurb of text in Korean features on the back cover.

The darkness of the cover and the matte finish tends to attract grubby fingerprints and I will have to cover the book in plastic if I want to protect it from smears and day to day life of being stored in my collection.

Although it is marketed as a hardback cover, the backing material is quite thin in comparison to my other coloring books as you can see from the video.    Just from storage and shipping the cover has already become bent and dinged on the corners.     It certainly is not the sturdy hardback cover that you may expect.   Really you would be better off considering it as a paperback cover for storage purposes.

The inner cover, both front and back,  is protected with grey protective sheets of a paper.

Ancillary Pages

A plain text title page commences the book with publisher details on the reverse.    This is followed by another title page.     These pages would be the best place to test out your mediums and see how they react with the paper and your coloring style.

Over page a double page spread features some lovely tree images with text in Korean.     I am not sure,  but I assume, that this is a note from the artist.

Layout

Illustrations have been printed on both sides of the off-white, paper.    The paper is lightly textured and is on the heavier side of medium.    All of the images have been orientated in portrait style within the book.        Some of the artwork does run to the gutter of the book, but the binding allows you to easily color in these areas.

The book is based on fairy tales and as such this tends to lead to scenes of artwork being created rather than single-page imagery.     There are 42 double-page scenes within the book.

Fairy Tale Korean Illustrations  – Hanbok  –  Coloring Book Images and Illustrations

This is an unusual fairy tale coloring book.     The concept of imagining well known fairy tales and putting a Korean traditional slant on the illustrations is a unique idea.        Some of the re-invented drawings are immediately recognizable like Snow White, Alice in Wonderland,  Thumbelina and Swan Lake but others ….I am not sure of 🙂    I find myself leafing through the book, wishing for some text in English, to guide me on what fairy tale I am looking at.

The artwork has a real hand-drawn feel to it with varying line weights and changes in the black outline from dull to rich.

Within the book, you will find a variety of illustrations including beautiful pomegranates,  flowers,  elaborate portraits and hairstyles, fairy tale characters, nature scenes, and beautiful objects.     There are a couple of pages within the book that I would classify as “wallpaper” or pattern style.  Although they do not appeal to me,  I am sure that they would appeal to many colorists.   For me,  they give me the opportunity of using whatever medium I want on the reverse of the image without worrying about damaging the picture.

There is a wide variety of complexity to the line art in the book.  Some pages are packed with detail, whilst others have fewer elements on the page and more open-spaced details.

At the end of the book, you will find 11 colored images from within the book.     These colored drawings are so stunningly beautiful that my first reaction was an overwhelming desire to cut them out of the back and frame them.     All of the colored pieces have an aged appearance to them, which would take a lot of skill and experience in order to replicate.    Of course, you do not have to color in this style and it is up to you how you choose to complete the line art.

Bonus

At the end of the book, a double-page fold out of line art for Alice in Wonderland has been produced.    You can also refer to the colored image of this drawing for inspiration.    On the reverse of the poster, you will find small elements from Alice in Wonderland as well to color including the Cheshire Cat and Queen of Hearts.

Detail Level

Where to buy Fairy Tale Korean Illustrations Coloring Book – Hanbok

Etailer

Australian colorists – email Paul at Bookland who will order the book for you.  It may take a week or two.

Happy coloring x

Lea

 

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