Magisk Gryning Book & Postcards by Hanna Karlzon

Summary 
Current Price: £9.90
Number of Pages: 96
Size: 25 x 21cm 
Paper colour: Ivory
Paper surface: Smooth  
Paper thickness: Very Good  
Linework: Fine/Medium
Perforated: No  
One sided: No 
Binding: Glue  
Drawings go into the spine: Yes
Waterbased pen bleed: None

Magisk Gryning is the latest book from my favourite illustrator, Hanna Karlzon, and it is absolutely extraordinary! I love Hanna's books and each one just seems to get better and better in terms of beautiful content and imagery, Magisk Gryning being no exception. The title translates to Magical Dawn and the English version is available for pre-order on Amazon. I favour the Swedish editions however, purely because they are in the illustrator's native language which I find preferable and the paper will always be brilliant quality compared to some of the problems there have been with the English paper stock.

This book, as its title suggests, has a very magical and fantasy theme including potion bottles of Dragon's Breath and Rainbow Dust, a lady with stars in her hair holding reins with pet butterflies attached, toadstools with cluster crystals growing from them, animals adorned with gemstone jewellery, a bird carrying a miniature village on his back and a gypsy grasping her crystal ball. There are tonnes of gems and crystals included so if you love to practice colouring precious stones and jewels this is the perfect book for you! There are also lots of portraits in this book, all of stunning and mystical bejeweled women. Take a look through the book below:

The postcard book (known in Sweden as Vykort) contains 20 images from the main book, either cropped down or as sections from the original artwork. The images are perfectly scaled so that no detail is too tiny to colour, and the illustrations have been really well selected. Here are a selection of images from the book:

The main book has the same lusciously thick paper stock as Hanna's previous books, with a smooth texture, ivory tone and no bleed-through from water-based pens. The format is identical too, in size and production, with a hardback cover and gold foiling details. Magisk Gryning has a pastel lilac cover which goes wonderfully with the mint green and baby pink of its predecessors. All of the Swedish colouring books I have reviewed so far are second to none in print quality- if only all colouring books were so well made! The one annoyance is that the book is double-sided so you are unable to use alcohol markers. It's a shame as some of these images would look amazing if coloured with the seamless blends alcohol ink gives. Luckily, the publisher has made Artist Editions (Tavelboks) of Hanna's books so along with the single-sided postcards you can use any colouring media you like.

Tidevarv is the title for Hanna's next book, and what we know so far is that it will release later this year, is all about the four seasons and has pale lemon yellow cover! I can't wait!

Here are my coloured pictures from the main book and the postcards. I coloured the crystal clamshell with Prismacolors and the the tattooed girl with Letraset Promarkers.

This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review. You can find it here:

Magisk Gryning by Hanna Karlzon
Magisk Gryning Postcards
Magisk Gryning Artist Edition
Magical Dawn pre-order
Magical Dawn Postcards pre-order
Magical Dawn Artist Edition pre-order