Summer Nights Coloring Book Review

Summer Nights Coloring Book: Originally Published in Sweden as "Sommarnatt" Buy on Amazon US| Buy on Book Depository|Buy on Amazon UK|Buy on Amazon Ca
by Hanna Karlzon
Published by Gibbs Smith on August 9th 2016
Style: double page printing
Pages: 96
Format: Glue & Stitched, Hard back

Goodreads

Pages filled with starry nights, fanciful gardens, underwater creatures, fantastic portraits, and more. Linger over long Scandinavian evenings, and watch the stars appear in the latest whimsical world of Hanna Karlzon's creating. Hanna Karlzon finds inspiration from her mother’s garden and childhood memories, playing in the forest or in fields of flowers. Her dreamlike elements of a Swedish summer night will win anyone's heart.

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Summer Nights  Coloring Book Review & Giveaway (ended)

****Giveaway Instructions****

I adore this  book and I’d love for you to be able to enjoy this book as much as I do. I have one copy of this book to giveaway. All you need to do to enter is:

• be over 18 years of age; and
• leave a comment below.

There is one entry per person. The giveaway is open to all worldwide. The giveaway will end at 5.00 pm 4 October 2016 (Sydney, Australia timezone) and a random winner will be selected.

Extra entries can be obtained by:

1. leaving a comment on the You Tube video for this book review here:
2. leaving a comment on the Facebook post for this giveaway at my Facebook page here (make sure you LIKE the page so you will see when I announce the winner) Feel free to TAG your friends that would LOVE the opportunity to win the Summer Nights coloring book as well)

You will be notified within 48 hours after the giveaway ends, via the email address you provided. The winner will be announced on my blog and You Tube channel. If the winner does not claim their prize within 3 days by contacting me and providing shipping address to me at that time, then another random winner will be drawn.

The giveaway prize is for 1 (one) copy only of this book only and is not redeemable for cash or exchange. The winner should note that prizes usually take approximately 2 weeks to be dispatched and delivered to you, depending on your location and availability of stock.

This giveaway is not affiliated in any way with either You Tube or Facebook.

Good luck ….now let’s get to the review!

Summer Nights Coloring Book Review illustrated by Hanna Karlzon

Summer Nights is the second coloring book illustrated by Hanna Karlzon.  Her first coloring book, Dagdrommar was an outstanding success and has been translated into numerous languages around the world.   The English edition, known as Daydreams was released at the same time as the English edition of her second coloring book, Summer Nights.   Summer Nights was originally released as a Swedish edition titled, Sommarnatt, and you can see my review of that coloring book here.

In Summer Nights Hanna takes on another magical, illustrative journey of a summer evening in Sweden like no other.    There’s magical forest creatures, intricately decorated insects and beautiful flora and fauna throughout.

Cover & Layout

The English publishers of Summer Nights, Gibbs Smith,   have gone to a lot of effort to ensure that fans purchasing the English version of the coloring book have no unfair comparisons with the original edition. For that reason, they have done an outstanding job of paying attention to details. Just like Sommarnatt, Summer Nights features gold foiling for the title and highlights on the insects.   The spine has a beautiful black binding on it with the details in rose gold foil.   The gold foil used on the original coloring book is a different shade, being similar to the gold used on the cover.    The words “coloring book” have also been added to the title on the spine.

Summer Nights measures 21.6 x 25.7 cm (approximately 10 in x 8.5 in) the same as the English edition of Daydreams.

In a side by side comparison a slight difference can be noted between the editions.    This difference is due to the hard cover backing used by the English publishers  being a smidgen thicker than the Swedish edition.

Inside a lovely black matt protective page introduces you to this beautiful coloring book. A simple title page with a little insect on it is your welcome to the book.   Over page, copyright information is adorned with a little mushroom to color.   It is sweet how these little elements have been used in the book in reverse to Daydreams.   In Daydreams mushrooms featured on the title page and a beetle on the copyright page.

A page with a dedicated “This book belongs to” follows.   This beautiful page is often the first thing that colorists color when purchasing this book.   My pinterest board is full of gorgeous images of these colored, plump birds with their beautiful jewels.  Hanna makes her nameplate pages into a true piece of art and the illustrations just get better as you make your way through it.    All of the images that were in Sommarnatt are in Summer Nights and are presented in the same order. The only difference is that any Swedish text has been translated to English. The English text can be found on the copyright page, title page, nameplate page and a dedication page.   Unlike Daydreams, Hanna has not provided any outline drawings for us to doodle our own illustrations (thank goodness!).

Gibbs Smith, the English publishers have endeavoured to ensure the paper was the same in this book as the original edition. To achieve this goal they ended up sourcing paper from the same plant that produced the original book. The paper is a delight and appears exactly the same color, slightly off white, and weight as the original version.

Daydreams is illustrated on both sides of the paper and there is also an artist version which contains 20 illustrations printed on single sided pages, for colorists that prefer wet mediums.

Illustrations

The illustrations are gorgeous in Summer Nights.  The tone of the book is set from the beginning with an image of a girl with a butterfly, like a sleep mask, on her face.  The stars that swirl around her indicate that it is night time.   The pocket watch on the facing page indicates that it is time to Dream.  We are then led into a world by a wooden door with an elaborate lock and beyond we find all sorts of things.

There are insects about and keys to unlock the door, one presumes.   There are pages of flowers, busy bees and elaborate crowns.   There are gorgeous people that are also decorated in some way, either head gear or tattoos.  Among this you then find an abundance of cuteness.  Little mice with a basket full of stars, cheeky spiders with a precious stone, beautiful gems everywhere – as part of an animals gear, as part of the foreground of nature, hanging from flowers like chandeliers.

You will find fairy tale like buildings, animals with little outfits on and gorgeous birds.   A beautiful cat plays a starring role In this book as well.  The closing picture featuring a young girl lying in a field of flowers sleeping with two gorgeous cats by her side.  It seems a fitting end to a book that will take you through a magical journey of escapism.

You will often see that an insect, gem stone, feather or other element is drawn as a sole image on the page.   Then further along we see that element used as part of another illustration.  It is like we are getting the opportunity to notice things at a micro level and then in context at a macro level.  Or it could be just my imagination 🙂

The line art in this book is beautiful. The lines are crisp and black throughout the book. A medium line weight is generally used throughout making the pages very easy to see and making the images pop on the page. Some finer, delicate lines have been used to add texture and dimension when required as well as those sprinkling of little dots we see Hanna use from time to time.

Most of the images are single page illustrations that are well positioned on the page for ease of coloring. However, there are a handful of illustrations that have line art right to the spine, making it tricky to color.  You will also find 14 pages that comprise double page scenes. These scenes have line art that runs into the spine of the book, making it difficult to color.

A number of the illustrations really call for a beautiful background to be added whilst others are so filled with detail that there would be limited room to add a background to the image.

All of the images have been orientated portrait style in the book.

Pencils and water based markers like tombows should not present a problem when used in the Summer Nights coloring book.   However, make sure you discreetly test your markers on the copyright page to ensure that there is no bleed through.   We all have different coloring techniques and for one person a light touch is a heavy touch for another.  This can make a big difference whether your markers bleed or not.    The paper is not designed for alcohol based markers.    If you wished to use alcohol markers then the Artist’s edition of the book or even the small postcards may be a better choice.

Summer Nights Coloring Book Video Review

Enjoy the video review of  Summer Nights Coloring Book by Hanna Karlzon

 

Where to buy Summer Nights coloring book by Hanna Karlzon

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Amazon Canada

Book Depository

Other coloring products illustrated by Hanna Karlzon

See completed pages from Summer Nights Coloring Book on my Summer Nights Pinterest Board here. I’m always amazed at the different ways colorists color these gorgeous illustrations!  Hanna’s third book, Magical Dawn, as an English edition, will be released in March, 2017.

Happy coloring x

Lea

 

 

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