Kew A Year in the Garden Colouring Book (Chameleons)

If you like colouring flowers ... you will love this book. Good quality paper.

This has certainly helped me relax after a spinal procedure. Thanks.

A Year in the Garden by Clair Rossiter is a new colouring book from Kew Royal Botanic Gardens and published by Bloomsbury books. The book measures 21 x 0.8 x 25cm, which is slightly smaller than A4 size in height but has the same width. the cover is a creamy yellow with a stylised floral design and sketchy type writing embossed with bronze foil, which is in keeping with the illustration style of the book. It features French flaps and the back cover has a lovely touch with a bookmark for you to cut out. The binding is glued and sewn which makes it difficult to colour into the spine, however it it well-made and paperback so bending right back to crack the spine will not result in pages falling out.The pages are bright white and thick paper / thin cardstock and smooth which will take both pencil or water-based markers well and although not watercolour paper this should cope easily with Watercolours and Inktense; just go easy with the water to limit wrinkling.The ink is crisp and fixed so it doesn’t transfer to the other pages or run when wet.The illustrations are stylised florals and some animals, and a mix of single and double page spreads and are utterly charming. They range from scenes to collections of images and the lines are a heavy black and range from thick to thin. there are small details but these are easy to see.This is a book aimed at those who simply wish to sit down with a pack of felt-tips and fine-liner pens and simply colour. The bright solid colours will balance the strong line-work beautifully creating a stained glass effect. I tried a variety of felt tips and fineliners (see below) and as the paper is nice and thick there was no bleed-through or shadowing on the reverse (alcohol-based markers though will through any paper, so no Copics, Spectrum Noirs or Sharpies). Gel pens and pencils also work beautifully.I was kindly sent a copy by Bloomsbury in exchange for a fair and honest review. All thoughts are my own true feelings and are not influenced by the fact that I was sent a free copy.