Querkles: Icons by Thomas Pavitte

Quirkles is possibly the most addictive colouring book ever! Once you start one of these, it's hard to stop until you've completed the whole thing. The premise is simple: each page is made up of a mess of interlocking circles that make no visual sense whatsoever, until you start colouring. Each circle is numbered 1-5: 1 for the darkest shade up to 5 which is the lightest. You can use any colours you like, or use cross-hatching techniques to achieve the shadows and highlights that makes up each face.

Crosshatching with 1 colour to create light and dark

The difference between Querkles and your usual colour-by-numbers book is that they take longer to do, are much bigger than average, and the portraits end up looking like Warhol-esque works of art. The book has 20 images altogether, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it took me 2 hours of continuous colouring to do just one. It is much bigger than average too, measuring over 15x11 inches! Extremely good quality, thick paper coupled with perforated pages means they're perfect for removing and displaying in the home, and with hundreds of circles on one page alone, you're getting a lot of bang for your buck. The best part is, you have no idea who you're colouring until you're halfway through (unless you cheat and flip to the back of the book like I did!). 

If you're thinking it looks complicated, I'm with you there. When I first opened the book I was a bit taken aback- initially by the size, and then by the sheer number of circles filling the page and no decipherable image to be seen. I was surprised to find that it really is such an easy system- it's just time consuming. I selected 5 different shades of blue from dark to light, and concentrated on one number at a time until the chaotic mess of circles turned into this:

Amazing, right? The icons in this book range from Winston Churchill to Amy Winehouse, all hidden in the cluttered circles waiting to be revealed with colour. Check out this time lapse video of Querkles going from nothing to iconic portraits.

The sequel to this book, Masterpieces, is filled with classic artwork from Mona Lisa to Michelangelo's David, and a 3rd as yet untitled book is due for release this October (2015).

You can find both of the current Querkles books on Amazon, here:

Querkles: A Puzzling Colour-by-Numbers Book

Querkles Masterpieces: A Puzzling Colour by Numbers Book