Published by Pagina förlag on October 2016
Style: double page printing
Pages: 96
Format: Glue & Stitched
Goodreads
Magisk gryning (Magical dawn) is a journey into a world filled with glimmering crystals and magical potions. Meet the mythical creatures that comes alive at dawn and let your imagination decide how to color the illustrations.
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Magisk Gryning Malarbok Video Review
I hope you enjoyed the video review of Magisk Gryning (Magical Dawn) coloring book by Hanna Karlzon.
Magisk Gryning Malarbok Review
Magical Dawn is the third colouring book for adults by Swedish, artist Hanna Karlzon. We first fell in love with Hanna’s artwork with her first colouring book Dagdrommar (Daydreams). She followed that book with Sommarnatt (Summer Nights)Â and now she has given us a Magical Dawn.
I was not sure what to expect from this coloring book. At first glance I was confused by the different style of imagery in this book. On looking at it again I fell in love with the magical influence within. For the first time Hanna presents us with a number of bottles and potions which haven’t been present in her previous coloring books.  We will also find the art that we are familiar with beautiful women, elaborate insects and animals with cute crowns.
Cover & Layout
The cover of Magical Dawn matches the series of books that Hanna and her publishers produce being the same size and design. Magical Dawn has a lovely lilac colour cover with gold foil highlights. As usual Hanna has taken an insect and made it beautiful on the cover.
The spine is bound in black with gold foil text consistent with her other colouring books. The rear of the cover comprises an elaborate hourglass with gold foil highlighting. The cover illustrations are included within the book for you to color in as well.
Inside the same black matte paper has been used to protect the colouring book.
The book measures 25.5cm x 21.5cm.
Ancillary Pages
A lovely title page starts the book that comprises an adorable frog with a crown for you to color.   This adorable image is is also incorporated into a larger illustration within the book.   Over page the copyright information has a few little crystals there for you to embellish. The nameplate page, written in Swedish, immediately shows a “magical” element with Star Dust and Rainbow Light and other magical potions.  These potions have also been included in other illustrations within the book.       The ancillary pages are a great place to test out your mediums and see how they react with the paper and your coloring style.
Layout
The illustrations have been printed on both sides of the ivory paper. The paper is the same color and quality as Hanna’s previous books being a medium quality. All of the images have been orientated portrait style. The majority of the illustrations are a single page design. There are 14 pages that comprise double page scenes within the book.
Illustrations
The illustrations contain the familiarity that we have with Hannah’s work. There are an elaborate jewels, crystals and gems. There are adorable toadstools and a number of little animals adorned with crowns. Strong, independent and individual women feature throughout. There is also an air of hippie about this book that is more noticeable than others.
This book is the first of Hanna’s to feature a number of bottles and potions and more text than any other that she has produced. Fairy dust and other potions are all labelled in English and shooting stars and rainbow swirls gives some of the art work a retro feel.
The line art in this book is a black medium weight line and finer detail and dots have also been added to the work, as is Hanna’s usual style.
The use of predominant dots is something that Hannah is known for.  These dots can assist the colourist when shading and adding texture and dimension to the area. Hanna is known for drawing elaborate floral tattoos on her ladies.   In this book the ladies seem to have acquired more body art than previously and are richly decorated in floral tattoos.
A lot of the pages have gems, crystals, crowns, stars, bubbles and glass bottles that will give the colourist a lot of practice with these techniques.
Hanna tends to use the whole of the page for her designs. Some of the art work does run adjacent to the spine. As the book lays down relatively easily the colourist should not have any difficulty in reaching these spaces.
The double page scenes also cross the spine of the book. But, as the books lays down well these areas should not be a problem to colour.
There are many illustrations that would benefit from an elaborate background or background effects being added for a touch more magic.
Colourists with visual impairment may find that some of the imagery is it difficult to see detail without their magnifying glass. There are many images that have large areas however, that may not prove so challenging to colour.
I really like the quirkiness of this book and all of the magical references throughout.
Magisk Gryning Malarbok Image Gallery
Please click on the image to see more detail from the Magical Dawn colouring book by Hanna Karlzon.
[foogallery id=”4968″]Where to buy Magisk Gryning Malarbok
I purchased the Swedish edition of this book from Pen Store in Sweden. I have always found their service to be efficient and prompt.  Please remember, if you are ordering the Swedish edition of the coloring book that you need to order the “Malarbok”.  There is also a set of postcards and artist’s edition for the book ( “tavelbok”).
In 2017 the English edition of this book will be released with the title Magical Dawn Coloring book. Magical Dawn is available for pre-order now at the links below.
Buy US Magical Dawn   |
Buy UK Magical Dawn   |
Buy Canada Magical Dawn   |
Getting Inspired
See my Pinterest board for completed pages from this book if you need inspiration.
Happy coloring x
Lea
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