by C L Aldridge
Published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform on April 24th 2016
Style: color inspiration images, Instructions - Tips, single page illustrations
Pages: 86
Format: Soft cover
Goodreads
A truly beautiful book featuring 24 gorgeous hand-drawn full page illustrations, inspired by beautiful flower gardens, stained glass windows, antique botanical prints, sparkling gemstones, zen mandalas, uplifting words and more!
There are 24 Full Size 8 1/2" x 11," single-sided pages, PLUS; 24 crafter size (5" x 7," single-sided, 2 on a page), perfect for cutting out and framing, mounting to a greeting card, or using on a scrapbooking page.
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Flower Inspirations Coloring Book Review
Flower Inspirations is the second coloring book for adults created by artist, C.L. Aldridge. You can see a review of her first coloring book, Flowers and Dreams here.
Christine Aldridge has a very distinctive artistic style. Her work so far always has a nature focus, usually botanical but not always and a very symmetrical style. I always feel that there is an illusion of a stained glass window or a mosaic, perhaps enhanced by the border she frames each illustration with.
Cover & Layout
The cover of the Flower Inspirations Coloring Book sets out what illustrations are clearly included in the book. The tag line states that it contains “Beautiful floral patterns, Botanical Mandalas, Gemstones, Lovely Words and More!”
The book is A4 size and measures approximately 8.5 in x 11 in. It has a soft cover with a gradient background of aqua and yellow and title in hot pink. On the cover you will find 3 thumbnail style images of colored drawings from the book. I love it when artists include colored pictures to give us some inspiration for coloring. A a big part of me though wishes that the cover was a bold, partially colored illustration, of just one picture with the thumbnails on the back cover.
Full page floral design with detailed frame around the Illustration
On the back cover there are 7 colored thumbnails from pictures in the book. These pieces have been colored by fans of the artist’s work and they are thanked on the back cover for their wonderful coloring. In addition, there are 12 partial thumbnails of line art in the book on display.
The title page of the book has a thumbnail of line art featuring one of the illustrations that is on the front cover. This is a great spot to test out your mediums and see how they will react with the paper and your coloring technique. Additional paper has also been provided at the end of the book where you can also test your mediums.
Mandalas feature detailed flowers in the foreground
Over page, there is an additional thank you to the colorists who colored the inspirational thumbnails you will see on the front and back cover. In addition, there are tips on how to enjoy your book.
A double page spread of thumbnails of the line art in the book follows. These are the only pages in the book where the printing is on both sides of the paper and provides a visual index of the drawings in the book.
The illustrations that follow have all been printed on single sided pages on white trade stock paper. The images are orientated in both portrait and landscape style.
The artist has such a lovely style of art work that I hope, one day, we will see some of the elements of her designs used to decorate a pretty nameplate page at the start of the book. This additional touch, would just add a dash more elegance to the overall presentation of the book, in my opinion.
Illustrations
The illustrations contained in Flower Inspirations live up to the promise on the cover of the book. There are 24 full page illustrations in the book. In addition, the 24 illustrations have been reproduced at a crafter’s size on 2 per page giving the colorist a total of 48 pictures to color in.
Floral full page design
There are 12 fully floral based illustrations in the book. There are 4 mandala based designs in the book. These mandala images comprise florals in the foreground with a mandala based on petals and leaves in the background of the image. There are 8 single page illustrations for each of the words Faith, Hope, Charity, Love, Gratitude, Compassion, Grace and Healing. Imagery surrounds the given word which comprises an outline font. The artist uses the whole of the page for the design and frames each image with a medium weight black border. The border frame varies between being highly decorative and more simplistic depending on the art work.
An outline font is used with the “lovely words” so the colorist can color all the text
All of the illustrations have been well positioned on the page to ensure that there is white space surrounding the frame of each drawing. None of the illustrations have been positioned near the spine of the book. Colorists will not experience any difficulties coloring the pictures within the book.
The line colour is black in the book and is mainly a medium weight, with some fine lines for details showing texture and dimension. There are some elements in the book which have been colored in a solid black. Visually the line art is easy to see for those with minor visual impairment.
Full page floral design featuring larger spaces to color
There is quite a lot of variety in the illustrations in the book ,not only of types of flowers but also layout and complexity. Some illustrations offer larger areas of space to color and others feature smaller design elements for those that like more detail in their work.
Most of the illustrations use the whole of the space on the page but there are some pieces of art, where colorists that like to do backgrounds, would have enough space to tizz it up.
Illustrations are also printed in crafter’s size two per page
As well as the full page drawings of 24 floral images there are also 12 pages of those same drawings in crafter’s size. These drawings are reproduced two per page and allow the colorist to, practice their color palettes or use these smaller versions for crafting projects. They would make lovely note cards, gift envelopes, bookmarks or simply frame them in a group.
Flower Inspirations Coloring Book Video Review
Enjoy the video review of the Flower Inspirations Coloring Book below:
Where to buy Flower Inspirations Coloring Book
| Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon Canada | Book Depository |
Coloring Books by Christine Aldridge:
You can see a selection of coloring books by Christine Aldridge below. Her artwork is also included in the “Treasury” coloring books which are a compilation of works by various artists. You can see a review of Treasury 1 Coloring Book here and see the review of her first coloring book, Flowers and Dreams here.
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Happy coloring x
Lea
Absolutely kove this book and all of Christine’s (C.L.) books…
Her books definitely desrve your reviews.
❤❤
They are gorgeous! I often buy a page from her Etsy site as well when I want something to color …because you know I have absolutely nothing to color here! 🙂