Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion – A Review

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Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion: Adult Coloring Book is created, published and kindly sent to me to review by Amelia Gregory, the creator of the hugely successful Amelia’s Magazine. This book is really unusual because each double-page spread is created by a different artist, all of whom are named with a short bio about them and their piece at the back of the book. This means that art styles vary hugely throughout from thick and chunky lines with large open spaces, to spindly thin lines with teeny tiny gaps and everything in between, this book truly fits the description of varied, and really does have something for everyone. The book itself is a little smaller than A4, paperback with a thick-ish card cover, and it’s nice and chunky because the paper used is thick and very high quality. Each image is a double-page spread with the left-hand side coloured by the artist, and the right-hand side left black and white for you to colour. Some of the pages are one full design with half coloured and half not, and others are two similar, paired designs that don’t have a continuation aspect but are definitely related, this mixture works really well and makes for a really cohesive feel in the book despite the art being created by 44 different people. The paper is white, thick, and textured making it perfect for water-based pens which go on really smoothly with no bleeding, and pencils which layer and blend beautifully. Alcohol markers do bleed significantly so I’d avoid those but the paper is perfect for almost any other medium. One of the best things about this book is the binding, it’s called lay-flat binding and it does exactly what it says, the book lies flat no matter where you are in it so there is no spine to worry about and no area down the middle that can’t be coloured. It’s very similar to the postcard bindings which means that the images are easily removed for displaying but this also means you need to be careful when colouring on your lap or any uneven surface because you could cause the pages to become loose so do be careful with this book. The images are printed double-sided with a coloured image on the reverse of each black and white image so you don’t have to worry much about bleeding and I experienced absolutely none with the pens I used.

The images themselves are really varied because they’re each created by a different artist so there isn’t a lot of specific detail I can give without describing each image which is why I’ve included lots of photos from inside the book below. As I mentioned before, there is a huge variety of line thickness, intricacy and detail level, the image style is also really varied from abstract to realistic, cartoony to surreal, impressionist to scenic and much more. The content is equally varied from people to places, food to animals, scenery to portraits and heaps and heaps of other quirky randomness. The colour schemes of the pre-coloured pages are also really different from bright to dark, every colour to a limited palette, pastels to neons and primaries to naturals, so there is huge scope for you to use all sorts of different colours schemes in your own work either by matching your half to the pre-coloured half, using opposite colour palettes, complimentary colours, or just doing your own thing completely. There really is so much scope to make this book your own and turn it into a work of art.

In terms of mental health, the variety is a big selling point for those of you with fluctuating conditions and varying levels of concentration and ability. There truly is a page that will suit any mood, symptom and ability level. This variance means that it won’t be suited to those of you with particularly poor vision or fine motor control because there are a number of highly intricate and detailed images but for the majority of you, this book will really suit you, especially if you really like a mixture of styles. On top of getting the book, you also get 8 postcards, 4 of which are fully coloured and 4 are black and white ready to be coloured by you. This book really is the book that keeps on giving! You can colour the postcards on the days when you want a small project and the book when you’re up for a full-page challenge.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes to use pens because of the bleed-proof paper, those who like to remove and frame their work, those who love variety and anyone with a fluctuating condition because this book covers all levels and will keep you very busy. The binding is fabulous and an absolute dream to work with – I wish all colouring books had it! This book is filled with beautiful art just waiting to be coloured and it’s limited edition with just 1000 copies being printed so what are you waiting for?! Get ordering!

You can purchase a copy here:
Amazon UK – Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion: Adult Coloring Book

The image below was coloured using Stabilo Point 88 Fineliners, Staedtler Triplus Fineliners and Staedtler Triplus Fibre-Tips.