Ivy and the Inky Butterfly: A Magical Tale to Color
Category: Books,Humor & Entertainment,Pop Culture
Ivy and the Inky Butterfly: A Magical Tale to Color Details
Review PRAISE FOR JOHANNA BASFORD'S COLORING BOOKS“The colorists have a queen, and her name is Johanna Basford.” —New York Magazine“Consider trading in your yoga mat for a set of markers and peruse the gorgeous gardens of Basford's imagination.” —Huffington Post“Artist Johanna Basford is at the forefront of the grown up coloring trend. Her whimsical artwork just makes us want to drop all our responsibilities and color forever.” —Hello Giggles“This is a breathtakingly beautiful coloring book, full of detail, whimsy, and possibilities. Inspiration invades at the turn of the first page and is guaranteed to capture the imagination and attention of any artist young and old.” —The Children's Book Review Read more About the Author Johanna Basford is an illustrator and ink evangelist who prefers pens and pencils to pixels. Her intricate, hand-drawn illustrations are loved the world over by those who have colored in (sometimes more than once) her bestselling books Johanna's Christmas, Magical Jungle, Lost Ocean, Enchanted Forest, and Secret Garden. Johanna is a graduate of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee. She likes sugar mice, floral teacups, peonies, and bumblebees. Read more
Reviews
I will attach a silent, full length flip-through of the storybook/coloring book as well as a few sample photos so you can judge for yourself as to whether or not this coloring book will work for you.Once again, Johanna Basford is blazing a new path in the coloring genre. With “Ivy and the Inky Butterfly”, she has published a beautiful storybook about a young girl and her adventures in Enchantia. Along with the lovely story, there are great coloring elements on all pages. Whether the design is merely framing around the words of the tale or if it is a full page (or even a two-page spread) of illustration, Ms. Basford's signature style is immediately evident. There are beautiful flowers and animals as usual. There are also scenes with a high amount of detail. Some of my favorites are those which feature Ivy, who is a cute little girl. The illustrations are highly detailed and only a very few have smaller and intricate areas to color.As with her most recent coloring books, there appears to have been a concentrated effort to reduce the elements which span across the binding if the page is a two-page spread designs. In my book, some pages line up fantastic and some are a little off. The only real problem I have with the book is that due to the intense glue binding, it is very difficult to get into the seam unless you, as I did, break the spine. The inherent problem with that is that you risk having pages come loose over time. It seems like the book is glued together much more heavily than previous books by Ms. Basford.I want this book to be a keepsake I read to my grandchildren and which I plan hand down to my granddaughter once I have finished coloring it, so loose pages can be a problem. I solved that problem by, in addition, buying the UK version of the book which has a sewn binding. I'm waiting for delivery and will include comments about the differences (in the comments below) once it arrives. You can find the UK version of the coloring book here: Ivy and the Inky ButterflyThe paper is ivory as just it has been for the last couple of books. It is not the same color of cream as used in “Secret Garden” or “Enchanted Forest”. Nor is it the white color that was used in the first four printings of “Lost Ocean”. It seems to me that the paper has a smooth side and a slightly rough side and that it alternates in my book.The cover is attached and has green and gold foil highlights. The inside of the front and back covers have French folds (partial fold-outs.) There is a color palette test page at the back for testing your medium to see what seeps through or not.This is what I found as I colored in this book and tested the paper with my coloring medium.Alcohol-based markers bleed through the page quickly.Water-based markers (except for Tombow's) leave shadows and even spots of color on the back of the page. The brush end of Tombows did not bleed through.Gel pens and India ink did not bleed through the page.Colored pencils worked well; however, they worked better on the slightly rougher side of the page. On the smoother side, my oil-based pencils did not grip the page as well but were still acceptable. I tested both oil and wax-based pencils. I was able to layer the same color for deeper pigment, layer multiple colors and to blend with a pencil style blending stick (again, better on the rougher side than on the smooth side.) Pencils did not leave indentations on the back of the page.