on 1 July 2016
Style: double page printing
Pages: 48
Format: Card cover, Glue & Stitched
Popular children's book author, Russell Ince, has re-imagined his popular story as a colouring book with a Christmas theme
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Santa Claus The Book of Secrets Christmas Colouring Book
I hope you enjoyed the video review of Santa Claus The Book of Secrets Christmas Colouring Book by Russell Ince.
Santa Claus The Book of Secrets Christmas Colouring Book Review
When Russell Ince ran a Kickstarter campaign for his coloring book of Fairies I fell in love with the cover and backed the campaign. During the campaign Russell advised that he was also publishing a colouring book based on his popular children’s story, Santa Claus The Book of Secrets. The thought of a Christmas colouring book with that divine cover was lovely, so I immediately ordered it. This was months and months ago. Of course, when I was sick both this book and the Fairies colouring books arrived, and each week they crept further into my “to do” pile 🙂
Cover & Layout
The cover was what drew me to this colouring book. It is always a risk buying a book when the only thing you have seen is the cover, and not even a peek inside. The cover features finely drawn line art highlighted by solid black elements and dashes of gold foil on the front. You could color the cover in and it would look gorgeous.
The book is slightly smaller than what you may expect measuring in at 22.5 cm x 26cm.
Ancillary Pages
A limited version of the cover art has been used as the title page in the book. As I purchased my copy of the colouring book from the artist before it was released, it is numbered and signed. Copyright information and an Introduction to the colouring book follows. Russell explains how many people used the illustrations from his children’s story book as wrapping paper and the like. This inspired him to produce a colouring book.
Layout
The first thing that you will notice as you turn the pages of this colouring book is how thick the paper is. It really is like card stock which makes it a shame that the images have been printed on both sides of the paper.
All of the illustrations are orientated in portrait style.
Throughout the book there are 14 double page scenes where the art work does run into the spine. However, the binding is beautiful and the book lays down flat with ease, making it effortless to color in the spine area.
Many of the illustrations do have art work that also abuts the spine but again the binding makes it very easy to color in these areas.
Illustrations
Russell has created a number of festive drawings featuring Santa Claus, gift boxes, candy canes, baubles, toy soldiers and gingerbread houses. The art work is charming in a traditional Christmas style. The lines have been drawn in a dull black with a fine line which may be difficult for some colorists to see, without a magnifying lamp.
The full page festive scenes are gorgeous and I would have preferred to see more of those in the book and less pages of patterns.
Santa Claus The Book of Secrets Christmas Colouring Book Image Gallery
Please click on an image to view more detail.
[foogallery id=”5292″]Where to buy Santa Claus The Book of Secrets Christmas Colouring Book
The book is readily available in the UK and from the artist’s website. In the US and Canada only private sellers appear to be offering it for sale on Amazon and the price is really expensive for a coloring book.
At the time of writing, Book Depository has a waiting list for the colouring book. You will need to click the “notify me” button and add your email address. Book Depository will then let you know when the colouring book is back in stock.
Happy coloring x
Lea
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