Belles and Blossoms Coloring Book Review

This poor book published by Creative Haven has been sitting in my “to do” stack for quite some time now so it was time to bring it out for review. When I purchased this book, I was intrigued by the “Belles” aspect of it and part of my imagination had though of something like Southern Belles and Scarlett O’Hara type gowns.

Belles and Blossoms features ladies that are either wearing a gown decorated with blossoms or are surrounded by blossoms. As you can see from the cover art some of the belles have a rather stiff and wooden appearance whilst others appear to be drawn in a more fluid style.

Cover & Layout

The soft glossy cover follows the same layout that Creative Haven use for all their coloring books. A fully colored image is on the front of the book (the line art is in the book for you to color as well) and another inspirational image is on the back cover.

On the inside covers you will also find inspirational colored images at either end of the book.

Ancillary Pages

A title page with a scaled down illustration commences the book with copyright information on the reverse. This is the only place to test out your mediums and see how they react with the paper and your coloring style.

Layout

The illustrations in Belles and Blossoms Coloring Book have been printed on the white, light to medium quality paper on one side of the paper only. The pages are perforated for easy removal so you can color on a clipboard if you wish to.

Belles and Blossoms Coloring Book Images and Illustrations

Belles and Blossoms is a cute and whimsical coloring book featuring lovely belles and an abundance of flowers. The illustrations are very detailed with some pages packed with so many flowers that colorists with a minor visual impairment may run screaming from 🙂 There are some elements within some of the pictures that have larger areas of open space to color but the blossoms tend to be tightly packed in other spaces on the page. This is not a book that colorists that have motor skill issues, arthritis or minor visual impairment would be likely to enjoy.

In order to color some of the images you may need fine liners or otherwise you will be constantly reaching for your sharpener.

There are a variety of flowers that form part of each image either in the background of part of the Belle’s outfit or hair. However, even though there is a variety because of the way that they have been presented and positioned on the page, they tend to start looking the same after a while.

The Belles have been presented in a variety of poses with side on images, full body and partial body illustrated in the book. The side on illustrations tend to be a little larger and easier to color in with larger elements on the page. These images would give you an opportunity to practice your skin colors and tones.

Some of the full body images have been drawn quite small in comparison to the page. In these images many lack a lot of financial detail and due to the smaller area may be difficult for practicing skin and hair in any great detail. These images, would be great if you just wanted something easy and simple to color, without adding a lot of fuss and technique to the area.

Each illustration has been bordered with a medium width black frame. This ensures that you will not color near the spine of the book. In addition, the pages are perforated for easy removal and printed on single sided paper so you can use your favorite mediums on them.

Colorists that wanted to color the illustrations but have health issues making it difficult to color the detailed areas may wish to just do a color wash on the area. This provides an effective result without causing stress to your body.

The line art is black and crisp and very easy to read.

Please click on an image to view more detail

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