Min Mandala by Maria Ljungeld

Summary
Current Price: £8.88
Number of Pages: Cream
Size: 25 x 25cm
Paper colour: Ivory
Paper surface: Smooth  
Paper thickness: Good  
Linework: Medium
Perforated: No  
One sided: No
Binding: Glue  
Drawings go into the spine: No
Waterbased pen bleed: Some shadowing

Those of you who have followed Colour with Claire for a while will know that every Wednesday I used to share a free colouring illustration from the Facebook page Black White Mustard. Maria Ljungeld is the lady behind BWM who draws the inventive, avant-garde mandalas the page is famous for. A few months ago Maria stopped posting the mandalas due to a 'secret project' that was happening behind the scenes... the product of that project is her very own full-size colouring book, Min Mandala (My Mandala)!

Maria's mandalas are not your standard and sometimes boring circular symmetry. Every mandala has a theme and is made up of repeated objects rather than pattern. There are cooking themed mandalas, with whisks, rolling pins and Danish pastries; sewing themed with scissors, thread and buttons; sports themed with shuttlecocks, baseballs and basketballs; hairdressing themed with barber shop signs, mirrors, combs and hairspray-- and loads more! Some of the mandalas are less easy to distinguish and a little more abstract, but each one has a charm and interest that will appeal to those who enjoy repetition with a twist. Here's a full flip-through of the book; see if you can decipher some of the themes.

The book is square in format and has a recycled-card-feel cover with glossy pink & gold embossing to the title mandala. This shiny pattern also features on quarter-width fold out french flaps to the front and rear of the book. The paper is a creamy ivory colour and is fairly thick but not as thick as the paper from other books by this Swedish publisher, such as Vivi söker en vän. There is some light shadowing to the reverse when using water-based pens, but not so heavy that it wouldn't be covered when you colour the image behind. None of the mandalas go into the spine, so you can colour every bit of the image. Maria has even included 4 blank templates for you to create your own mandalas! Overall I'm stoked as a BWM fan to have a whole book of Maria's innovative art.

Here is my finished picture, coloured with Staedtler Triplus pens.

This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review. You can find it here:
Min Mandala by Maria Ljungeld