Beautiful Creatures by Nicole Stocker

Summary
Current Price: $11.40
Number of Pages: 48
Size: 27 x 23cm
Paper colour: White
Paper surface: Smooth 
Paper thickness: Very Good
Linework: --​ 
Perforated: Yes
One sided: Yes 
Binding: Glue 
Drawings go into the spine: No​
Waterbased pen bleed: None

Before I start this review I have to say that this book is not available to buy in the UK. At the moment it has been published in the US and Canada only, but the author is doing her best to find distributors further afield. I just didn't want my UK fans to read the whole review and be disappointed at the end when they realised it's not up for purchase here. You can buy it from Amazon.ca (it's out of stock until next month in the US), and have it shipped here if you wish. It costs £14.52 altogether with standard shipping from DHL, which I've been told by other UK residents can take less than a week (rather than the 6-8 weeks it predicts).

​As soon as the book is on sale over here, I will announce it on my Facebook page and update this review. 

Greyscale colouring is something that has begun to trickle into the adult colouring groups recently, and I was compelled to find out more. The coloured images look so realistic, often seeming like highly skilled coloured pencil drawings or even photographs. So how does it work? Well, I'll start with the creator of Beautiful Creatures, Nicole Stocker.

Nicole was enchanted by a greyscale photo of an apple tree in her parent's cabin when she was a child, and dreamed of it coming to life with colour. More recently, Nicole decided to give greyscale colouring a go, finding a picture of a Dahlia and converting it to greyscale. This was the result.

In complete shock at how amazing it looked, especially as she had no experience in blending, shading or typical artist skills, Nicole went on the hunt for a greyscale colouring book. After scouring the web, she realised there were none to be found. So, she decided to create her own, and Beautiful Creatures was born out of her careful curation of greyscale photographs.

But how does it work, you may be wondering. Well, it may look very daunting at first but there's actually a pretty easy trick to it. Firstly, find out what colours you want to use, then arrange them from dark to light. Colour all the darkest grey areas with your darkest colours, the lightest areas with your lightest shades, and the rest in medium tones. By using the greys as your guide, the pictures come to life like photographs- or at least, look like a picture you've sketched from scratch.

by Melinda Cochran

by Ann Reid

by Nicole Stocker

Now, back to the book itself. It contains 48 greyscale images and is extremely well made with high quality archival paper (100lb). Each image is printed on one side, with space on the back for you to write your name and the date of completion. The photographs are all encased in a border, centred on the page, so are ideal for box framing.
​The pages are all perforated, and you definitely will want to remove them- these are display worthy pieces right here! What I love about the idea is how easy it can be for someone with little-to-no talent for art (aka: me) to create a stunning 3D piece of art, just by colouring.

Don't get me wrong, I've got a long way to go before my results match those of the talents above, but I don't think I've done too bad for a first go. Here's my finished page, completed with Prismacolors, Polychromos and a white Uni Posca pen on the eyes. I've included the pic with and without flash, as I can't decide which I like best. Both have different details and reasons why they look good.
Let me know what you think about greyscale colouring, I'd love to hear your opinions!

with flash

without flash

This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review. You can purchase it from the US and Canada Amazon pages here:
Amazon.com
Amazon.ca