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Hem Ljuva Hem (Home Sweet Home) is illustrated by Emelie Lidehäll Öberg and published and kindly sent to me to review by Pagina Förlag. This book is only available in this format and is similar to the Swedish Artist’s Editions (Tavelboks), it measures 29.5x21cm (A4), it’s paperback with thick but flexible card covers which are white with green imagery from inside the book. The book has a green tape binding meaning the pages lie completely flat when the book is open and they can be removed for framing. The pages are made of thick cream card which is lightly textured and absolutely fabulous for using pencils on as they layer really well and blend seamlessly. Water-based pens also work really well on this card and don’t bleed through or sideways and there isn’t even a hint of shadowing either. The illustrations are all single-page designs and are printed single-sided so you can use whatever medium you fancy without worrying about bleed-through and mine didn’t even shadow when colouring the black sections of the image. The 20 illustrations are all posters, 19 contain text, 7 are written in Swedish, 12 are written in English, two of them include swearing (one English and one Swedish). The posters contain varying amounts of imagery and text with some just being beautifully drawn text and others just having a subtle message placed within a large colourable image. The phrases range from romantic to funny, exclamations to sayings, you can see them all in the images below. The illustrations also vary a lot from animals to flowers, objects to houses, scenes to collections and more, they are all drawn beautifully and are each packed with content so there’s loads to colour in each one. The posters would be ideal to remove and frame either for your own home or to give as gifts.
In terms of mental health, this book is great, I’m always a huge fan of books that offer a project that can be gifted or displayed because these are fantastic for showing us what we can achieve and for giving us a goal to work towards and afterwards, a reminder of what we can do. You could easily colour them to match the theme of a room or to stand out a look fabulous and I can’t wait to frame my finished page and brighten up my walls with it! The line thickness is consistent throughout and remains thin but not spindly. The intricacy and detail levels vary a little within each image with most being fairly intricate but having a few places with larger open spaces, therefore this book would be ideal for most levels of vision and fine motor control. The content is pretty uplifting and positive and sure to make you smile or laugh, even on your worst days and it looks even more fabulous once you’ve filled it with colour! The images are all a manageable size and will take varying amounts of time to colour depending on what mediums you use and how much blending and shading you want to do but none are overwhelming or likely to require weeks of dedication! Most of them consist of lots of component parts so you can colour them in sections if you wish, particularly useful if you’re having a bad day.
Overall, this is a fab book, it’s filled with beautiful artwork just begging to be coloured and displayed and it’s sure to perk up even the most symptom-filled days. The card is ideal for all mediums and the posters lend themselves to all types of colouring styles.
If you’d like to purchase a copy, it’s available here: https://www.printworksmarket.com/p/shop/books/all-books/hem-ljuva-hem-20-posters-to-color-and-frame.html
I run a fan group for the artwork of Emelie, please do join us and share your work.
The image below was coloured with Holbein Artist’s Colored Pencils, Faber-Castell Polychromos Pencils and a black Sharpie.
Colouring In The Midst Of Madness 