Jessica Palmer

The Tiffany Glass Coloring Book – A Review

Disclaimer – Please read this disclosure about my use of affiliate links which are contained within this post.
The Tiffany Glass Coloring Book is published by Rizzoli and illustrated and very kindly sent to me to review by Jessica Palmer. Jessica has also sent me a second copy in order to run a giveaway, this is currently running on my FB page and you can win a copy of this book and a set of 20 Winterkleurkaarten by Julia Woning; you have until midnight on the 29th of November 2017 to enter here. This book is a new format, design and style from what we’ve come to know for Jessica’s art in the Tangle book series but it is no less beautiful, it’s just different. The book itself is 23.1 x 25.4cm, paperback with flexible card covers and a partially coloured black and white design from inside the book. The spine is glue and string-bound and can be a little tricky to get completely flat but with perseverance this will become easier. The pages are a mixture of single-sided (25 images) and double-sided printing (42 images) and it seems quite random as to where these are placed, the images are also a mixture of single (63) and double-page spreads (4 comprising of 2 spreads) and many have black backgrounds (23 ish). The paper is bright white, lightly texture and medium thickness, it worked well with my Derwent Inktense Pencils and didn’t overly warp when activated with water and this didn’t shadow or bleed. Water-based pens don’t seem to bleed or shadow and pencils work well for blending and layering, alcohol markers can be used on the single-sided images as long as you place a protective sheet behind to catch any bleed-through. The images themselves are all inspired by Tiffany lamps and therefore have a real stained glass feel as they’re designed to have light displayed through them to show each section, therefore the images are mostly quite heavily lined with lots of sections making up each design. Each of the designs contains at least one dragonfly for you to find, sometimes these are the centre of the image and other times they’re hidden, they give a really cohesive feel to the book because even though each page is filled with different content, it’s still tied together with the Tiffany lamp and dragonfly theme. The designs vary a lot in size and content and Jessica explains in the introduction that she has deliberately created illustrations with much simpler designs for children or beginners and all different levels in between up to very complex detailed designs. There is a really good mixture of designs and pretty much all of them are heavily nature-inspired, just like the real Tiffany lamps. The images don’t contain actual lamps with fixtures and stands, they’re all designs inspired by lamps and therefore the artwork has been altered and adapted to fit a flat page rather than all of them being circular or curved which is nice.

In terms of mental health, this book is lovely, the natural images are great for calming you down and helping you zone out. The different levels of difficulty are ideal for those of us with fluctuating conditions because you can do simpler images on your worse days and more complex images on your better days when you can focus. The line thickness varies throughout and ranges from spindly thin to thick and mostly stays around the thin range. The intricacy and detail levels also vary hugely from large open spaces to much smaller, finer details and again, it remains mostly around the quite detailed level and therefore you’ll need fairly good vision and fine motor control to enjoy the majority of the images. The printing is ideal for those who like to use wet media or mixed media as you can colour the double-sided pages with pencil or carefully with water-based pens and the single-sided pages with watercolours, alcohol markers and paints if you wish. You can really challenge yourself to work on making the images look like sections of lamps with light shining through them if you wish or you can just colour them as normal colouring images, either option will look equally beautiful. The single-sided images could even be carefully removed from the book once coloured and framed or gifted if you wanted.

Overall, this is a lovely book, it’s not as niche as you might expect and the illustrations are all drawn in Jessica’s beautiful signature style and will look incredible once splashed with colour, whatever medium you fancy using!

If you’d like to purchase a copy it’s available here:
Amazon UK – The Tiffany Glass Coloring Book
Book Depository Worldwide – https://www.bookdepository.com/Tiffany-Glass-Coloring-Book/9780847860708/?a_aid=colouringitmom

Jessica has also sent me a second copy in order to run a giveaway, this is currently running on my FB page and you can win a copy of this book and a set of 20 Winterkleurkaarten by Julia Woning; you have until midnight on the 29th of November 2017 to enter here.

The image below was coloured with Derwent Inktense Pencils and activated with water.

WORLDWIDE GIVEAWAY and Review – Winterkleurkaarten: 20 Ansichtkaarten & Enveloppen (Winter Colour Cards: 20 Postcards and Envelopes)

Disclaimer – Please read this disclosure about my use of affiliate links which are contained within this post.
Winterkleurkaarten: 20 Ansichtkaarten & Enveloppen (Winter Colour Cards: 20 Postcards and Envelopes) are published and very kindly sent to me to review by BBNC Utigevers. They have also very kindly provided me with an extra set and an extra copy of Schemertijd Kleurboek by Maria Trolle which I’m currently running a Worldwide giveaway for on my blog until 23.59 GMT on the 10th of October, to enter please click here. This set of cards is illustrated by Jessica Palmer, the hugely talented illustrator of Tangle Wood, Tangle Bay, and Tangle Magic. These cards arrive in a gold card box with an image of one of the cards on the front, this box is a little bit flimsy and did get a bit squished on its travels to me, however, none of the cards or envelopes were damaged. The box contains 20 cards, these are not greetings cards, they are square postcards that are single-sided with a design illustrated on the front, and text at the top on the back saying Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in Dutch, along with the copyright information at the bottom. The 20 plain white envelopes fit the cards perfectly and will be ideal for giving or sending the cards to others. The cards are made of bright white, lightly textured, medium thickness card, it doesn’t bleed or shadow with water-based pens but will with alcohol markers so do be aware of this, pencils, especially oil-based ones or those with harder leads, are very difficult to colour with on this card and require a lot of patience as the lack of tooth makes it difficult to layer or blend, my Prismacolor Premiers worked pretty well but I really struggled with Holbeins which seemed to clump and not colour evenly. The images themselves are all drawn in Jessica’s beautiful signature style and are really varied in content, some are winter-themed and the majority are Christmas themed. As always, none of them include people but rather beautifully anthropomorphised animals in humanesque scenes from ice-skating foxes to a mummy rabbit bearing cake and presents, badgers sharing a candlelit dessert to dancing herons, dogs decorating a Christmas tree to daddy bear reading a bedtime story to mummy and baby bear, each card is different from the last, they all feel similar because of Jessica’s drawing style but the content really does vary between each one. These cards are different from any imagery you’ll see on normal Christmas cards, or any colouring Christmas cards and they really are something special!

In terms of mental health, these cards offer a great, manageable project, they’re small enough not to be overwhelming, but large enough that they’re not coloured in seconds and you can take your time colouring each section without needing days to do so. The line thickness is consistent throughout and is thin and spindly thin. The intricacy and detail levels do vary a little across the images as well as within them but mostly they’re very intricate with lots of small details so you will need very good vision and fine motor control to enjoy these cards. You will need pretty good concentration to get the most out of them, some of the cards consist of lots of fine details that can be a little tricky to decipher if your focus is elsewhere so I’d suggest leaving those cards to colour on your better days. Colouring cards are a great project because not only do you get to enjoy colouring them, you can then send them to others and share the joy or even send them uncoloured to a friend who might need a little push to start colouring, they’re great for spreading some happiness and colouring love! The shape of them would make them ideal to frame if you wish, they could be a lovely added extra to your Christmas decorations or a really personal touch for your loved ones.

Overall, I would highly recommend these colouring cards, they’re beautifully drawn and really varied in content and they’re a lot of fun to colour, you will need good vision and hand control but these are really worth taking time over to make them perfect and they’re ideal for pen colourists! If you liked Jessica’s Tangle series of colouring books then you’re sure to love these cards!

If you’d like to purchase a set, they’re currently unavailable on the usual sites though they are listed there so do sign up for email alerts and they’ll tell you when they have them in stock, hopefully it’ll be soon! If you just can’t wait then you can order from Bol.com, below.
Amazon UK – Winterkleurkaarten: 20 Ansichtkaarten & Enveloppen
Book Depository Worldwide – https://www.bookdepository.com/Winterkleurkaarten/9789045322070/?a_aid=colouringitmom
Bol.com – Winterkleurkaarten

Don’t forget, I’m running a Worldwide giveaway to win a set of these cards and a copy of Schemertijd by Maria Trolle, to enter click here by 23.59 GMT on October the 10th.

The image below was coloured using Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencils  and Holbein Artist’s Colored Pencils.

Tangle Wood Collector’s Art Edition – A Review

Disclaimer – Please read this disclosure about my use of affiliate links which are contained within this post.
Tangle Wood Collector’s Art Edition is illustrated by Jessica Palmer and published and kindly sent to me to review by Search Press Publishing. This book is the artist’s edition of Jessica’s hugely popular debut colouring book, Tangle Wood, which I reviewed almost 18 months ago, she’s since gone on to produce two further titles, Tangle Bay and Tangle Magic. This artist’s edition is a different format from the original and contains 20 images, some originally single pages and others a full double-page spread, I’ve included photos of all of the pages below so that you can see if your favourites are included and decide if this book is for you. It’s currently listed on Amazon with a release date in the UK as the 31st of March but my contact at Search Press is expecting their own website to have stock by the end of January and Amazon doesn’t usually take long after that so do get your pre-order in (links below) and you’ll be sure to get a copy as soon as it’s available.

The book itself is very large, measuring 25 x 33cm (the same size as Floribunda and the JB artist’s editions), it’s paperback with covers made of the same card as the pages inside, it’s thick card which is a beautiful cream colour, lightly textured and perfect for use with water-based pens which don’t bleed sideways or through, and pencils which layer and blend beautifully. I tested my Stabilo Point 88 Fineliners and they didn’t shadow onto the back, they just seemed to glide on top instead of saturating the paper. Cream isn’t everyone’s favourite page colour but it definitely adds a vintage feel and seems more natural than pure white so it really fits the woodland theme and also means you’re left with a less harsh contrast if you decide to leave the background uncoloured. The 20 images are printed single-sided onto the card and all of them are landscape, some are single page images from the original book which are printed a little larger, and others are double-page spreads which have been shrunk to fit the new page size. The book has a lay-flat binding meaning there is no spine to contend with and that you can reach the whole image to colour it. The pages are all removable, they’re not perforated so there’s no risk of them not being fully perforated and you ripping a page when trying to remove it, they’re all glued onto the spine in the same way as postcard books so they’re easy to remove if you wish but do stay put as long as you’re careful and don’t twist the spine too much, mine arrived pretty stiff. The removable nature of the pages is ideal for two reasons, firstly, its main purpose, which is so that they can be displayed, framed, or gifted to friends or family so your colouring is no longer destined to stay hidden away in a book; secondly, it makes it much easier to colour if you remove the page first – the book is very large when fully open which makes it difficult to colour on your lap or even on a clipboard because it’s over A3 size when opened, but when you remove the page you can turn it to any angle you please so that you can colour each section easily without having to have your hand hanging off one corner or be rubbing over previously coloured areas and accidentally smudging bits.

The images included are all from the original version of Tangle Wood, unlike most artist’s editions, the majority of these images are actually smaller than in the original book, I personally don’t think this was the best decision as Jessica’s illustrations are some of the most detailed around and it would have been lovely to have slightly larger scale versions to get our teeth into. There are also some slightly odd image choices like the floral frame which doesn’t actually fill the page or have enough space in the middle to draw much of your own imagery, or the floral spray with a small hummingbird, I was very disappointed to see that the gingerbread house wasn’t included apart from as a faded background for the bio on the back page. However, those niggles aside, the book is lovely and the images are really beautiful. Of the 20 images, 3 are printed larger than the original, 11 are printed smaller than the original, and the rest are the same size (see comparison photos below). The illustrations are printed in a different order from the book and don’t show the journey through the wood as the original did, there also isn’t a treasure hunt aspect though there are jewellery pieces hidden in each illustration. On the back of each page it says “Hand Coloured By” with a line to write your name and then “On” followed by space to write the date, you could also add the colouring mediums you used as a great record for the future.

In terms of mental health, this book is great, Jessica’s work contains so much detail that there’s constantly something to look at and notice, there’s a really good mix of images from up-close plants and insects to more scenic pages and all of the chosen illustrations will look beautiful framed if you wish. The linework is fairly consistent throughout and is thin and spindly thin, the detail levels do vary because the scale of the images varies and it ranges from the tiniest of details up to much larger open spaces. While you will need pretty good vision and fine motor control, don’t forget that you don’t have to colour in each tiny section individually and you can get great effects from colouring over sections and using the black linework as pattern or texture through your colouring, I often do this with Jessica’s illustrations and it’s really effective. The drawings themselves are really natural and evocative and are sure to spark your imagination as well as calm you down, Jessica’s illustrations feel very peaceful so they’re great for slowing down a racing mind. A number of the images have large spaces where you could add your own backgrounds but this is by no means necessary and the pages will look beautiful with or without any additions. There is also a variance in the amount of content on each page so you can tackle a simpler page on bad days or a more complex design on days where you can focus and concentrate more fully. Fans of the original book are sure to love this edition, it feels quite different from the original but it has many more uses and is ideal for using heavy/wet media that you can’t use on double-sided pages.

Overall, I would highly recommend this book, while the image choice and layout is a little disappointing, this may just be my personal taste and what is here is very lovely and will look stunning finished and framed. The book itself would make a wonderful gift or you could colour and frame a page for a loved one, or just brighten up your own home with your wonderful creations, I will certainly be framing my own soon, I just love how my owl turned out!

If you’d like to purchase a copy, it’s available to pre-order here:
Amazon UK – Tangle Wood Collector’s Art Edition
Book Depository Worldwide – https://www.bookdepository.com/Tangle-Wood-Jessic-Palmer/9781782214878/?a_aid=colouringitmom
Search Press Website – https://www.searchpress.com/book/9781782214878/tangle-wood-collector-s-art-edition

The image below was coloured using Holbein Artists’ Colored Pencils and the background with PanPastels.

Inka Shade: The Lampshade you can Color – A Review

Disclaimer – Please read this disclosure about my use of affiliate links which are contained within this post.
Inka Shade is a new company and concept which is bringing a wonderful new product to the colouring market – lampshades! Like many of you, now I’ve started adult colouring, I’m always on the lookout for new things I can colour, as soon as I see something black and white I instantly start imagining colour schemes so I was very excited when I discovered that colouring lampshades were a reality! These lampshades come in two styles and each style can be either a main ceiling light or a lamp, some designs are only available in one style but each listing clearly states if this is the case. The kit contains your colouring lampshade strip which is a surprisingly long piece of plastic-backed material with the design printed on the outside. Many of the designs can be ordered in plain black and white or as a partially coloured option with the background printed in a specific colour. I requested the beautiful Dragonfly Pool design from Tangle Wood by Jessica Palmer with a pale blue background. The kit also contains two large metal rings, one for the bottom to hold the shade in the correct shape, and one for the top so that it can be fixed to your ceiling light. It also contains a self-adhesive Velcro strip so that the lampshade strip can be fastened around the metal rings and a long self-adhesive strip with rubber grooved material to place the metal rings into on the inside of the lampshade. It also contains a very well-written instruction booklet including diagrams and clear step-by-step instructions, while it’s easy to follow these, it’s a bit fiddly putting the whole thing together so I’d advise roping someone else in to help you, I did mine this weekend with my mum which made it much easier. I found that mine was a little loose around the metal rings but it’s possible to adjust it with the help of another person by undoing the Velcro and tightening or loosening it around the metal rings. Another quick note is that the metal ring at the top that fastens on to your ceiling light fixing is very large and you’re likely to need a silicone ring to make this ring smaller so that it fits, a link to the ones we purchased for this can be found below, just above the photos. All parts of the lampshade are made really well and are good quality, nothing feels cheap or poorly made or fitted.

The lampshade itself is either entirely white or has a coloured background, these are clearly marked on the website so there’s no confusion, they’re not currently available in a range of colours, each is available plain or in one colour of their choosing. There is a huge range of designs and many are from artists you’ll recognise including Chris Garver, Jessica Palmer, Valentina Harper and Kludo White. The content of the designs is also really wide-ranging from mandalas to campervans, animals to plants, patterns to quotes and so much more. I’m a huge fan of Jessica Palmer’s work so when I saw that some of the lampshades had her designs on, I had to choose one of those and I’m so glad I did. The linework is printed really crisply onto the lampshade and the background is also printed faultlessly, one small criticism I have is that some small sections of the background haven’t been filled in and colour-matching to fill these in was pretty difficult, however there were only about 5 small sections on the whole lampshade so it’s not that noticeable and this may not be the case in other designs and obviously wouldn’t be in the case in any of the plain styles. I was sent the barrel lampshade without a lamp kit so that I could use it on a ceiling light and it’s huge, much larger than most lampshades I’ve seen so do check out my photos below and the measurements on the website before ordering. The barrel shades are significantly larger than the pedestal shades. The lampshade strip is really long so you’ll need a good clear space on the floor or a large table to be able to colour it easily. Pencils and water-based markers won’t work on this material so this is definitely a project for those of you who like to use alcohol markers. It is possible to blend on this material if you wish, I’ve not got a lot of experience of doing this so I played it safe and block coloured everything which I thought might look a bit rubbish but I’m honestly in love with the finished piece. I would suggest thinking through your colour choices quite carefully, very dark colours like the darkest green and dark purple I used don’t work so well as the light doesn’t shine through it enough so slightly brighter or paler colours are best to stick to and then they give an almost stained glass effect. The lampshade material is quite strange to colour on and does seem to use up quite a lot of ink so make sure you’ve got new pens or spares so you don’t run out half way through, it doesn’t feel absorbent and I really can’t describe it properly as it’s not paper, it has no texture and seems to be shiny but not totally plastic. If you’re careful you only get minimal striping in your colouring but this doesn’t totally disappear like it does when using alcohol markers on paper. According to my contact at Inka Shade you can also use crayons, or oil pastels, even if you’re able to get pencils or water-based pens to work on the material which I think would be a struggle, they don’t have enough colour pigment to illuminate well so I’d strongly advise sticking to alcohol markers so you get a nice vibrant finish.

In terms of mental health, I would highly recommend these lampshades. They take hours to colour and provide a very good project to work through, they also give you a huge sense of achievement and satisfaction when they’re finished. While they’re a bit fiddly to assemble and you may need help from another person, once they’re assembled and up, you’ll be instantly cheered up, I honestly smile every time I see mine whether the light is on or off because I’m just so pleased with how it turned out and proud of how lovely it looks. They’re a bit addictive too, now I’ve done one I keep looking at the other designs and thinking about how good they’d look in all of the rooms in my flat and even as gifts for people! The line thickness varies across the designs but there are lots of photos on the website of each one as well as dimensions so you’ll be able to pick one out that will suit you. The intricacy and detail level also varies hugely between shade designs with some being extremely detailed and others being much more open designs with larger spaces to colour. The design I chose has a variety of line thicknesses and sections sizes and instead of colouring within each tiny space on the dragonfly wings, I decided to block colour over them and use the lines as texture underneath which I’m really pleased with. You also don’t have to colour each section and could easily leave some white as the light still shines through, I drew turquoise lines on each of the bubbles to indicate shape and left the background of each white and I love the effect it’s given. The sheer number of designs offered means there’s something suitable for everyone with themes ranging from nature to patterns to vehicles, there’s sure to be something that will help your mental health, and suit your home décor and once finished it makes a great talking point too!

Overall, I would highly recommend these lampshades. They’re great fun to colour, really varied in content and they’re a lovely reminder of all you can achieve!

If you’d like to purchase one, all of the designs can be found here, they currently only offer delivery to the USA but you can contact them on the website to arrange shipping elsewhere in the world where they will provide you with a quote once you’ve provided your address.

The lampshade below was coloured using a mixture of Promarkers and Sharpie Fine Point Markers.

WORLDWIDE GIVEAWAY and Review – Tangle Magic: A Spellbinding Colouring Book With Hidden Charms

Disclaimer – Please read this disclosure about my use of affiliate links which are contained within this post.
Tangle Magic is illustrated by Jessica Palmer, published and kindly sent to me to review by Search Press Publishing. Search Press have very kindly offered to sponsor a Worldwide Giveaway for 2 copies of Tangle Magic (entry details at the bottom of this post, just above the photos). I am blown away by this book and have spent more time than I should have just looking through the pages, always noticing something new, there’s just so much detail included and so many aspects that aren’t immediately obvious but that you notice over time. I nearly cried when I saw that I had very kindly been mentioned in the dedication (see photo below) and that so many of my ideas for image content had been used, most notably the wonderful crystal ball, free from tangles so we can all colour it realistically, Jessica, from the bottom of my heart, thank you, for the dedication, for including us colourists in your inspiration process, and for creating such a wonderful third book! Emotional, mushy bit over, let’s get on with the actual review!

This book is 22.2cm square (10 inches), softback with a soft touch flexible card cover with line drawings on the front and back which are contained within the book and the pages are flexibound meaning they’re quite tight to begin with but the spine eases up with use and Search Press have reliably informed me that with sensible amounts of bending (including bending the covers so far back that they touch each other completely) the spine will hold up and you’ll be able to access the entire page. I’m yet to be brave enough to try this but you can certainly get very close to the centre of each image without much difficulty and the pages are stitch-bound which always increases durability. The paper is thick, bright white and lightly textured, (the same as Tangle Bay), water-based pens don’t bleed or shadow as long as you’re careful and there is plenty of tooth to be able to build up layers of pencil for blending and shading. The outlines of the images aren’t 100% permanent so when using pencils or heavy pressure, make sure you pop a spare sheet of paper behind your work to protect the proceeding page, the transfer is fully erasable but the paper will save time so you don’t have to be erasing things.

The book contains 75 pages of double-sided images which consist of a mixture of single and double-page spreads and they are filled with all manner of magical things. The content is a little different from what you might be expecting so I’ll describe it as best I can and have posted lots of photos of inside the book below so you can see inside for yourself. I was expecting to see predominantly magical paraphernalia and while there is plenty of that, the content is far more wide-ranging than I was expecting, I was thinking mostly witches, potions, magic wands and tricks, and there is lots of that, but there are also lots of anthropomorphised animals throughout which are either magical themselves, or in some cases performing magic tricks, or even the subject of spells. There are fairy tales included from the princess and the pea and what looks to be Aladdin in duck form, to a snow queen swan (or goose) and the characters of the nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle and even the owl and the pussycat who appeared in Tangle Bay (they appear to be favourites of Jessica’s). All things weird, wacky, spellbinding, mystical and magical are included and while it’s not especially traditional, the wide-ranging content is fantastically diverse and covers everything from witches and potions to tarot cards and fortune telling, magic spells and rabbits out of hats, enchanted creatures and objects, and heaps of mythical creatures including a phoenix, unicorns, dragons, a lizard king and lots of other anthropomorphised creatures. This book is the perfect third instalment of the Tangle series and is a great combination of the heavily tangled and patterned designs from Tangle Wood, and the more whimsical anthropomorphised animals that we found in Tangle Bay. Tangle Magic is packed with content, all of which is original and fresh whilst still being very much drawn in Jessica’s signature hyper-detailed style. The book doesn’t tell a story or have a particular feeling of continuity but it is extremely cohesive and very much sticks to the magical brief. Unlike the previous two titles, there aren’t any pages with any particularly large open spaces left and there is only one frame rather than several so this book is much more geared towards those who want to just colour instead of adding their own drawings and features, though there is still plenty of space for backgrounds to be added if you wish! At the beginning of the book is a beautiful full-colour gemstone colouring tutorial and there are plenty of gems drawn that you can practice on throughout the book to perfect your skills!

In terms of mental health, this book offers fantastic escapism and will provide wonderful distraction from even the most intrusive of thoughts or symptoms. The line thickness varies a little throughout but mostly it’s thin and spindly then so you’ll definitely need very good vision and fine motor control to enjoy this book. The intricacy and detail levels are extreme and second to none, however don’t be put off, while there is a very high level of detail and intricacy, you can easily colour over this (see my chameleon picture) and use it as texture underneath rather than colouring within each section which makes it far less daunting and overwhelming and also means that your vision and fine motor control don’t need to be so good! There is so much to look at within each page that you really do get transported into Jessica’s wonderful, whimsical world and I have found this book fantastic for my mood because the illustrations are of nature which is inherently calming, but they’re also spiced up with lots of fun, humour and intrigue which piques your interest and keeps you focused on the here and now rather than being lost in your thoughts. This book is absolutely beautiful, hyper-detailed and will look absolutely incredible coloured in because there’s so much variety and because the content is magical you can use whatever colours you like and have purple dogs, red ducks and bright blue owls, the only limit is your imagination!

I would highly recommend this books to fans of Jessica’s previous books Tangle Wood and Tangle Bay, Tangle Magic has returned to the hyper-detailed zentangled patterns, with a wonderful whimsical scattering of anthropomorphised animals to lift your mood and fill the book with fun. All things magical and mystical are pictured and the content is extremely wide-ranging so there’s sure to be something to suit everyone.

If you’d like to purchase a copy of the book it’s available to pre-order here –
Amazon UK – Tangle Magic
Book Depository Worldwide – http://www.bookdepository.com/Tangle-Magic-Jessic-Palmer/9781782214632/?a_aid=colouringitmom
Search Press (first stock will arrive there next week so this is the fastest way of ordering a copy) – https://www.searchpress.com/book/9781782214632/tangle-magic

Jessica’s first two books can be found reviewed by me here – Tangle Wood, Tangle Bay.

The image below was coloured using Faber-Castell Polychromos Pencils and the magic was coloured over using Sakura Gelly Roll Clear Stardust Gel Pen.

WORLDWIDE GIVEAWAY: Search Press have very kindly offered to sponsor a Worldwide Giveaway for one person to win two copies of Tangle Magic, one for them, and one to share with a friend. If you’d like to enter, head over to my Facebook Page and enter here by 8PM GMT on Sunday the 31st of July.

Tangle Bay: An Enchanting Colouring Book With Hidden Treasure – A Review

Disclaimer – Please read this disclosure about my use of affiliate links which are contained within this post.
Tangle Bay: An Enchanting Colouring Book with Hidden Treasure is illustrated by Jessica Palmer and published and kindly sent to me by Search Press Publishing. This is the sequel to Tangle Wood and you can read my review of that here. Tangle Wood is one of the nicest books I’ve ever seen so when I heard Jessica was creating a second book and that it would be beach-themed, I was very excited. I was a little worried that it wouldn’t live up to the beauty of Tangle Wood, especially for me as my favourite place on earth is the beach so this book had a lot to live up to. So does it hold up? ABSOLUTELY! Jessica has done it again and created another beautiful, unique book which encapsulates everything beachy! Jessica’s signature illustration style has altered a little but it’s just the right mix of empty spaces, zentangle patterns and realism. Jessica seamlessly blends animals, plants, objects and landscapes and adds her own zentangle patterns meaning you can colour lots of tiny little sections or colour whole blocks and leave the patterns as texture. This book is a work of art and the only difficulty I’ve had with it was narrowing down which image to colour first, there are just so many beautiful pages to choose from!

The book itself is square (slightly smaller in size than other square books but the same size as Tangle Wood) and softback (it’s not especially bendy so it’ll keep protected in a bag if you transport your books but also isn’t rigid and hard). The pages are thick, bright white (a deliberate change from Tangle Wood to ensure the blues you’re likely to use will show up well) and lightly textured and the 75 stunning images are printed double-sided. I experienced no bleeding when using my water-based fineliners so these should be fine for you to use (always test on an inconspicuous area to avoid ruining any designs). Pencils add colour smoothly and because the paper is textured you can add plenty of layers so you’ll be able to blend and shade beautifully. Some of the images are single pages and others are double-page spreads and the book is relatively tightly stitched and flexi-bound so some of the image near the middle is lost into the spine and it does take some stretching of the spine to be able to get it to lie flat or stay open without being held. With time though, I’ve found that spines like this do loosen up and with a book like this, it’s so worth the wait so don’t be put off, just be patient and keep working the spine so that you can reach the middle of the images. One small thing to note is that the black ink on the blackest pages does transfer when using pencils so just pop a scrap piece of paper behind your work to avoid this, it’s fully erasable if it does transfer but that saves having to get your rubber out!

This book is truly beautiful and the images are charming. I hope you’ll get some of the atmosphere through the images attached at the bottom but truly you need to see this book to realise just how wonderful it is. If you like colouring nature images that are highly detailed then you’ll just love this book. In Jessica’s first book you were taken on a journey through a wood, Tangle Bay doesn’t take you on a journey but instead Jessica wanted to create a sense of place and she’s done this beautifully and you really are transported to the beach of your childhood, your imagination, and of story books. So many aspects of the beach and the seaside are included from realistic scenes of puffins sitting on rocks and seagulls swooping, to storybook ships, mermaids and anthropomorphised animals like ducks wearing hats and donkeys dressed up having a day out at the beach on deck chairs! This book contains a mixture of styles and the majority of the images are less intricate and detailed than those in Tangle Wood (more info on this further down). This book contains such a wealth of images that it’s hard to describe them all. Jessica described it as being livelier than Tangle Wood and I definitely agree, there’s a lot more movement in the pages and more chaos, whimsy and fun. She’s added sprinkles of humour and you get hit by waves of nostalgia as you come across the image of the owl and the pussycat in their beautiful pea green boat, the Punch and Judy show, melting ice creams, deck chairs, parasols, postcards, sandcastles and flock upon flock of seagulls! This book flits between scenes of mermaids relaxing under the sea, penguins piloting an airship, day and night scenes of lighthouses, treasure troves just waiting to be made shiny and sparkly, and hordes of sea creatures from seahorses to whales, fish to crabs, dolphins to lobsters, jellyfish to seals and so much more! Scenes of typically British days at the beach are pictured including beach huts and even Brighton Pavilion (a huge plus for me as I live under 30 minutes away from it) and also underwater scenes from much further afield including coral reefs and exotic tropical fish. Hidden within the images are bits of treasure for you to hunt down and colour in and this treasure hunt aspect adds a real sense of adventure and fun to the book. Tangle Bay sparks your imagination and creates a wonderful world of escapism. Some of the images are highly detailed and intricate and many encompass typical zentangle patterns. Some of the images have large sections around or within them that have been left blank so that you can add your own details and backgrounds. These are less obvious than in Tangle Wood so the pictures won’t look at all unfinished if you choose not to add anything but the spaces are there if you want them. There are also some beautiful frames of shells, fossils, seaweed, and more, that are circular, square and even heart-shaped that you could either leave as they are or add to if your drawing skills are honed!

Tangle Wood and Tangle Bay are quite different from each other so I got in touch with Jessica to ask her about this so that I could give you all an accurate portrayal of the books. Tangle Wood is very detailed throughout whereas Tangle Bay has a fair number of much more open-spaced images with less detail and without zentangle patterns. Jessica explained that from the feedback she got about Tangle Wood, some people didn’t like the patterning so much and found it too intricate so she varied the detail levels more to appeal to more people and I have to say, this makes it ideal for those of you with fluctuating conditions because on your good days where you can really concentrate and focus, you can colour some of the really detailed zentangled pages, and on days where you’re more symptomatic you can colour the less detailed images and really practice your blending and shading skills and even have a go at adding your own zentangles to the sections. This mixture seems like a great way to reach more people and appeal to beginner and advanced colourist alike, I do personally miss a little of the detail, however, I’ve definitely been won over by the image content and shall have to get zentangling myself!

In terms of mental health, this book has a wide variety of detail and intricacy levels so it’s ideal for those of you with fluctuating conditions to keep you distracted and focused for hours on good and bad days. The line thickness varies from spindly thin to medium thickness but mostly it’s thin throughout so this book is best for those of you with fairly good vision and fine motor control. Unlike in Tangle Wood where the line colour varied, in Tangle Bay the linework is all black and there are no issues with fuzziness either so it’s great to see that’s been rectified. This book is beautiful and completely enchanting and the more I look through it, the more I notice and discover, and the more I fall in love with it, just as I did with Tangle Wood. I think this book is absolutely ideal for anyone with mental health problems because it’s so natural and calming and the subject matter is really relaxing and beautifully drawn and some of the pages are really fun and might even make you laugh (see the donkeys on deck chairs and sharks riding bicycles below). Jessica states that she puts her heart and soul into her work and this is so very clear in every page, her work is beautiful and is meticulously created. This book contains hours and hours of enjoyment and I’m sure it’s set to become a bestseller because it’s just gorgeous so if you’re wanting a copy I’d get your hands on one soon before everyone catches on to how unmissable this book is. I’ve heard that Jessica is currently working on a third title and as soon as I have any news, I will let you all know what we’re getting excited about and when we can get our sticky mitts on a copy. Like my Facebook page to be kept up to date!

If you’d like to purchase a copy it’s available here:
Amazon UK – Tangle Bay: An Enchanting Colouring Book with Hidden Treasure
Book Depository Worldwide – https://www.bookdepository.com/Tangle-Bay-Jessica-Palmer/9781782214137/?a_aid=colouringitmom

The image below was coloured using Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils, a Derwent burnishing pencil and PanPastels were used for the background.

Guest Post – Tangle Wood Book Launch

Hi, I’m Joe, Lucy’s partner, and I’m writing this because last night I went to a book launch for Tangle Wood, on Lucy’s behalf. She was sent the invitation a little while ago and I knew she was upset about not being able to attend so we decided I could go in her place to thank Jessica Palmer (illustrator of Tangle Wood) and Search Press Publishers for the book and their publicity in regularly sharing her review.

On arrival at Shepherd’s Bookbinders in London, I was presented with a glass of bubbles and quickly managed to strike up a conversation with a member of Search Press, who turned out to be Lucy’s email contact; she was also the person who found Lucy’s blog originally and requested the review. It’s always nice to put a face to a name! When I told her I was representing Colouring In The Midst Of Madness, she instantly knew who Lucy was and remembered the review she’d written. I was then taken straight over to Jessica and introduced as being related to “that review you really like”. Jessica told me how much she liked the review and how much it means knowing that something she has created is helping someone. I felt such pride at knowing how much other people love Lucy’s review and knowing how happy those comments would make her.

It was then speech time, which was mostly what you’d expect from a speech, Jessica’s backstory, interests, and what led her to where she is now – creating a papercutting book and the first of two adult colouring books. When she started talking about her target colourers – primarily female, stressed out people who lead busy lives and are looking for something to help them calm and de-stress, she mentioned me (which I was not expecting) and asked me to talk about Lucy’s conditions and how colouring has helped her. I explained about Lucy’s anxiety and how she wouldn’t have coped with London (I barely cope with London) and that colouring helps her to calm down, at which point, thankfully, she took the speech back over and went on to finish thanking people.

I spent the rest of the evening mingling, chatting to Jessica’s family, a couple of her friends from the BBC and the lovely people from Search Press. I then got chatting to the Store Manager who was hosting the event about how you forget old-fashioned bookbinding stores even still exist and I was surprised by the sheer number of different types of white paper and binding styles – no wonder adult colouring books are so varied with this amount of choice available.

The evening wound down and as everybody was making their way home, I ended up walking back to the station feeling very proud of Lucy and happy that I went because I had a really nice time. The people from Search Press and Jessica were all lovely, kind and friendly and I’m looking forward to Lucy hopefully being invited to the next book launch for Tangle Bay which we’re working towards her being able to attend herself.

If you’d like to read Lucy’s highly regarded review of Tangle Wood, you can find it here.

Tangle Wood: A Captivating Colouring Book With Hidden Jewels – A Review

Disclaimer – Please read this disclosure about my use of affiliate links which are contained within this post.
Tangle Wood: A Captivating Colouring Book with Hidden Jewels is illustrated by Jessica Palmer and published and kindly sent to me by Search Press Publishing. I’ll start off by saying that this is one of the most beautiful colouring books that I’ve ever seen and it’s now firmly in my list of favourite books. It’s somewhat similar to the books created by Millie Marotta and Johanna Basford but it has a unique style of its own and seamlessly blends animals, plants and zentangle into a stunning work of art that you’ll be clamouring to colour by the end of this review. The book itself is square (slightly smaller in size than other square books) and softback (it’s not especially bendy so it’ll keep protected in a bag if you transport your books but also isn’t rigid and hard). The pages are thick, off-white and lightly textured and the 75 stunning images are printed double-sided. The outlines of each picture can be seen through the pages so I assumed that pens would be a no-go in this book but actually, I experienced no bleeding when using my water-based fineliners so these should be fine for you to use (always test on an inconspicuous area to avoid ruining any designs). Pencils add colour smoothly and because the paper is textured you can add plenty of layers so you’ll be able to blend and shade beautifully. Some of the images are single pages and others are double-page spreads and the book is relatively tightly glue-bound so some of the image near the middle is lost into the spine and it does take some stretching of the spine to be able to get it to lie flat or stay open without being held. With time though, I’ve found that spines like this do loosen up and with a book like this, it’s so worth the wait so don’t be put off, just be patient and keep working the spine so that you can reach the middle of the images.

This book is truly beautiful and the images are unlike anything else I’ve seen because they’re so detailed, patterned and charming. I hope you’ll get some of the atmosphere through the images attached at the bottom but truly you need to see this book to realise just how wonderful it is. If you like colouring nature images that are highly detailed then you’ll just love this book. It takes you on a journey rather than being a collection of similarly themed images. You start off seeing some of the jewels that have been hidden within the wood and are greeted by a large tree and a friendly looking fox, you discover a gingerbread house and walk past all sorts of species of birds. You walk further into the trees and happen upon all manner of woodland creatures including badgers, rabbits, foxes, deer and hedgehogs, you encounter a family of owls and a kingfisher who’s caught his lunch. By the end of the walk you’ve reached what’s probably the heart of the wood and night has fallen and your path is lit by a smiling full moon. This book is so much more than a colouring book. It tells a story, it has hidden elements in the form of jewels and jewellery pieces and it sparks your imagination and creates a wonderful world of escapism. The images are highly detailed and intricate and many encompass typical zentangle patterns that you can either colour between so you’re colouring teeny tiny sections or colour over to create patterned blocks and sections. Some of the images aren’t complete or have large sections around them that have been left blank and while I was confused by these at the beginning and it felt a little unfinished on certain pages, after reading the introduction page it explained that these spaces are left so that you can add your own details, backgrounds, and to continue the picture on in your own way. I think this feature is great because it means that you can add to the book or leave it without there being text in the way and detracting from your beautiful colouring. There are also a number of floral and faunal frames that are circular, square and even heart-shaped that you could either leave as they are or add to if your drawing skills are honed!

In terms of mental health, this book has a lot of detail and intricacy so it’s ideal for those of you who like complicated images that keep you distracted and focused for hours. The line thickness varies from spindly thin to medium thickness but mostly it’s thin throughout like the majority of intricate colouring books are. The line colour varies throughout and some are blackest black and others are much paler and grey. One thing to note is that the lines of some the images are kind of fuzzy and seem out of focus, I wasn’t too keen on this to begin with but as time has gone on it’s bothered me less and less and now it doesn’t worry me. It did make me think my eyes were having a problem to begin with though so do be aware of it if you have vision problems and be careful if you get migraines (like I do) as it can make you feel a little strange. That’s the only slight issue I had with the book though, it is absolutely stunning and completely captivating and the more I look through it the more I notice and discover and the more I fall in love with it. I think this book is absolutely ideal for anyone with mental health problems because it’s so natural and calming and the subject matter is really relaxing and beautifully drawn. This book contains hours and hours of enjoyment and I’m sure it’s set to become a bestseller because it’s so gorgeous so if you’re wanting a copy I’d get your hands on one soon before everyone catches on to how unmissable this book is. I for one, am hoping that Jessica will be creating a new book soon because her artwork is beautiful and an absolute joy to colour! The images below are coloured with Marco Fine Coloured Pencils and Stabilo Point 88 fineliners. If you’d like to get a copy of this wonderful, woodland treasure hunt follow the link to Amazon Tangle Wood: A Captivating Colouring Book with Hidden Jewels