Flow: Coloring is a Form of Happiness, by Helen Dardik & Carolyn Gavin

I have a beautiful new book to show you today! It's the first colouring book published by Flow, a Dutch design magazine which is released around 8 times a year, and includes articles about professional and amateur crafters, stationery, and inspiration for having a creatively nourishing lifestyle. 

The magazine's website is designed for the crafty reader, having lots of free, downloadable goodies including lovely patterned wrapping papers, writing paper templates and colouring pages. 

If you're a crafter, maker or generally appreciate beautiful visual aesthetics then I'd recommend checking out the Flow website as there's oodles of helpful & interesting info on there!

Coloring is a Form of Happiness is illustrated by Canadian artists Helen Dardick and Carolyn Gavin, who have not only created some delightfully charming artwork for the book but also included tips and projects to help you learn how to draw. The Scandinavian influence certainly comes across in the style, as it definitely has that patternful Nordic feel.

The inside cover & Belongs To page

The book has a lovely outer & inner cover with pretty florals and sweet little birds & insects. It's one of the nicest colouring books I've seen purely on first glance, but that's because I like girly pinks, frills and flowers! Inside the drawings have been split into 6 categories, such as Birds, Quotes, and Daily Pleasures. I adore the pleasant, dainty style of the drawings, which look as if they should be childish but contain lots of detail for you to get your teeth into. The unique design is so charming I couldn't wait to get started- so I headed straight for that all-important 'Belongs To' page! I tried to emulate the typography for my name but it was around midnight and my eyes were going a bit skewiff and it went wrong in places. I don't mind because I feel as though this book celebrates imperfections and actually looks all the better for it :)

Finished!

Here's my slideshow of images from inside the book, or if your browser enables plugins you can flip through the whole book here.

The A4 book is quite substantial, each page crammed with different designs to colour- some full page spreads, some filled with lots of miniature illustrations. It's double-sided, but the paper is nice and thick so waterbased markers like Triplus and Tombow won't seep through. The surface is white and crisp with a nice tooth to lay down your pencils smoothly- no glossy coating in sight- and the linework mostly stays in the fine-to-medium range of thickness. 

Overall I have to say this book is going down as a firm favourite! I love the quirky, vintage style- there's something very nostalgic about those flower-patterned Pyrex dishes and pots & pans! It's a feel-good book, and one I'll be coming back to again when I simply want to colour something that makes me smile.

Here's my finished page, completed with Graph'It and Spectrum Noir alcohol markers.

This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review. You can buy a copy on Much Ado Books' website here.