Inklings 2 - Coloring Book Review

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by Tanya Bond
Published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform Style: single page illustrations
Format: Soft cover

Goodreads

Escape to another world in the INKLINGS 2 coloring book for adults, teens and children. It features 24 one sided fantasy art illustrations.

You will find fairies, pixies & maidens with their adorable companions - dragons, owls, robins, hummingbirds, animals & other charming creatures surrounded by beautiful flowers and trees.

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Inklings 2 – Coloring Book Review

Inklings is the second coloring book by talented artist, Tanya Bond. If you have not seen the first Inklings coloring book, please make sure you check it out. If you love, fairy like creatures you are likely to love both of these gorgeous books.

Cover & Layout

I adore the black covers this artist tends to use with her coloring books. Inklings 2 follows the theme with a black matte color with a gorgeous colored design on it, beautifully framed in a patterned border.

The cover could quite easily be framed – it is so pretty. Often cover art loses something with the printing process. However, this cover looks so beautiful in person, with gorgeous coloring, that it appears it has survived the printing conversion unscathed. The back cover also features a smaller colored image. Both of these images serve as inspiration for the contents of the book.

On the front cover of my book, you may notice a smudgy, dirty mark. This is not a printing error but my bad 🙁 I foolishly left my new stack of coloring books on the kitchen bench when hubby was cooking 🙁 Needless to say, there were some casualties 🙁

Inside there is a plain patterned title page which is consistent with the first Inklings book. If I had just one very minor niggle, it would be for the artist to include a gorgeous nameplate and title page in her books. I feel that these additions would add extra polish, to an already lovely coloring book.

Illustrations

The illustrations in Inklings 2 comprise beautiful, “fairy like” girls. Each girl has been named at the foot of each drawing. The majority of the girls look like they have stepped out from the past and could be easily found in medieval times, a nordic world or a woodland. There are a handful of girls that I would class as modern day maidens.

One of the things that I love about Inklings is the way that the girls are drawn. On the whole, the girls have very detailed hair and big soulful eyes. There are a few pictures where the hair lacks detail, but overall, the intricate hair really stands out on the image.

Intricate hair is a feature of Tanya Bond’s work

The girls are always positioned with a beautiful background, inspired by nature, that generally fills the page.

Modern Day Inkling – note the texture on the birds

There are one or two illustrations in the book that I wish had been re-positioned slightly. Unfortunately, a little bit of that luscious hair element has been removed by the book/trim margins. In a frame, it probably would not be noticeable.

From medieval inspired to modern

The illustrations are outlined in a crisp, dull black ranging between fine and medium line weight. There is a wide variety of images in the book with different levels of complexity for the colorist.

As you can see from the inspirational cover image, the beauty of these images shines when you are able to blend and shade. If you are new to coloring, or hate blending and shading, there are plenty of illustrations that would look lovely, even when colored solid. The artist has also included fine line work in many of the drawings which serves to add texture and dimension for the colorist.

The illustrations are printed on white, trade stock paper with one image on each page. It is clear that the artist has gone to a lot of effort to ensure that the pictures are well centered and away from the spine area of the book. The book does fold down flat with gentle nudging, although it is not needed because a wide enough space between image and binding has been left.