UK Giveaway and Review – Color and Relax: Tranquil Treasures

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Color and Relax: Tranquil Treasures: A Relaxing Coloring Book For Adults: Volume 2 is published through CreateSpace and illustrated and kindly sent to me to review by Jo Shiloh. I have been sent multiple copies of this book and so I’m running a UK giveaway (due to postage costs) over on my Facebook page which you can enter until Sunday the 10^th of April at 8pm. This is Jo’s second colouring book offering, the first can be found reviewed by me here. This second instalment is similar in layout but the images are more detailed, intricate and floral. This book is A4, paperback, with a full colour front and back cover and it contains 88 pages of 40 single-sided designs. The paper is typical createspace paper which is bright white, thin and toothy so it’ll bleed with water-based markers but pop a protective sheet behind your work and you’re good to go. The paper texture is pretty good for blending and layering with pencils. The book has a glue-bound spine so it won’t lie especially flat but all of the images have a border and are contained to a single page so they don’t enter the spine so there is no image loss. The images are very cohesive and the majority are mandalas drawn in various different styles from circular scenes to traditional mandalas, to repeating sections or patterns.

In terms of mental health, this is a great book for those of you who like to colour mandalas, patterns, abstract images and not realistic images of ‘things’. The images do vary but mostly they’re pretty intricate and detailed so there’s plenty to get your teeth into and keep you focused, and occupied outside your anxious thoughts or low mood. You’ll need a moderate level of concentration so this would be a great book for practising mindfulness techniques because you can focus on your breath and the task at hand. The line thickness varies a little but mostly it’s thin so you’ll need fairly good vision and fine motor control to stay within the lines and to colour the small sections. I’m personally not a fan of colouring patterns because I like to colour realistic images, however, colouring patterns can be particularly good for those of us with anxiety disorders because there are no right or wrong colour schemes and you can just pick a pen or pencil and go without worrying about getting the perfect cherry red or wood brown. Patterns offer a perfect distraction from having to actively think and they’re great for just doing sections of when you’re having a bad day or completing a whole page when you’re up to a longer colouring session. The images are quite swirly and flowing rather than having lots of blocky, sharp edges so they’re great for relaxing and calming you down.

I would recommend this book for those of you who love to colour patterns and mandalas and who prefer single-sided books for using mediums that bleed through in double-sided books. This is a really nice mandala book with plenty of detail to get your teeth into but not so much that it’ll put you off.

You can purchase a copy here:
Amazon UK – Color and Relax: Tranquil Treasures: A Relaxing Coloring Book For Adults: Volume 2
Book Depository Worldwide – http://www.bookdepository.com/Color-and-Relax-Jo-Shiloh/9781518790416/?a_aid=colouringitmom

The image below was coloured using Staedtler Triplus Fibre-Tip pens.