by Denyse Klette
Published by St. Martin's Griffin on September 13th 2016
Style: single page illustrations
Pages: 128
Format: Card cover, Glue Binding
Goodreads
64 pages of quirky and sleepy fairies will captivate you with their charm and their floral dreamland.
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Fairies in Dreamland Coloring Book Review
Usually when we think of fairies in “real life” we imagine, tiny little wispy girls living among the leaves and flowers of our gardens, or maybe that’s just me. Yet, when we look at our coloring books, our fairies are often larger than that, with more detailed features and fuller figured. I was surprised to see that the Fairies in Dreamland were waif like, and completely different from other fairy books that I own.
Cover & Layout
The cover of Fairies in Dreamland is gorgeous. It features all types of fairies lolling around among a floral landscape. Looking at the cover fairies we can see that they have been colored differently from other fairies, and remember, this is dreamland and anything can happen!
These fairies appear a tad sexy with their short leaf skirts and elaborate hair dos. They could certainly do with nibbling on a mushroom or two as their arms and legs are very thin. The biggest surprise though is the color. Usually when we think of fairies and color them, it is in skin tones that reflect a human. Often we accompany that with lovely delicate pastels. Other than Fairy Shampoo I don’t recall any of my other fairy books being so vivid!
The artist has colored the “skin areas” of these fairies in orange, pink and blue which challenges the way I think of fairies, and I’m really loving it. I’m wondering now what my other fairies would look like with purple faces and matching wings!
There are some lovely copper foil highlights on the flowers and some line art that you could also color on the cover. The title and spine look lovely in Royal blue. The spine has copper foil for the text and publishers logo.
The back cover features an abundance of different flowers and leaves in line art which you could color. My front and back cover both had a few little sticky glue balls that needed to be carefully rolled off.
Waif like intricate fairies
The book measures approximately 25cm x 25cm (approximately 10 in x 10 in).
Inside you will find a title page with an adaptation of the illustration on the cover. I would have loved to see the cover reproduced, but this quirky illustration on the title page is just as nice. On the reverse of the title page there is a plain copyright notice. These pages would be ideal for testing out your mediums.
A lovely nameplate follows featuring a gorgeous fairy in a floral hammock. Very cute!
The illustrations have all been printed on white, medium quality page and excepting for the ancillary pages at the front are all printed on one side of the paper only. The paper has a light texture to it making it ideal for layering pencils.
While this paper is suitable for mediums like pencils and perhaps tombow markers it would not withstand alcohol markers without bleeding to the page underneath. It is always good practice to put a piece of paper or card between the pages and I would do that in this book as well.
All of the illustrations have been orientated portrait style.
Illustrations
The illustrations are beautiful. They have a lovely fine, delicacy about them with a dash of quirky. These fairies, tend to spend their days reading or napping and presumably dreaming. The settings for this consist of lovely florals, delightful flower swings, beautiful floral hammocks and lovely bouquets.
In addition, to the fairies you will also find, from time to time, a little animal napping, maybe a pig or a cat having a nap or some birds nearby. There are only a couple of images in the whole book that do not contain a fairy. Quite, frankly some of the illustrations are so detailed it could be there, just hiding 🙂
The bulk of the images are enhanced by floral elements. The variety of flowers being drawn is good. There is a range of long stemmed florals, daisy type florals, finely petaled flowers, water lilies and hanging flowers and leaves.
In every fairy land there are also mushrooms. Fairies in Dreamland also has mushrooms, but fewer than most coloring books, with only a few pages featuring them.
The illustrations in this book are incredibly fine and detailed. You will need to have those fine liners and pencil sharpeners on hand. The majority of the images have a lot of fine detail making them unsuitable for those with visual impairment, unless you use a magnifying lamp. Colorists that have health issues which makes coloring small spaces challenging may find some pictures difficult.  There are a handful of images that have some larger spaces for ease of coloring.
The line art is a lovely dull black and is drawn in a medium weight with finer details in a fine weight.
The illustrations have been positioned with a good balance on the page between centered art and white space. A lot of the illustrations have art work over the bulk of the page. There are many illustrations that would benefit from a background color or background effects being included.
The bulk of the illustrations have line art that runs to the spine of the book. You will need to flex those muscles to push the book down to color in those areas.
This would be a great book to color of an evening. All those napping fairies and piggies dreaming certainly makes me feel tired 🙂
Fairies in Dreamland Coloring Book Video Review
Enjoy the video review of Fairies in Dreamland below:
Where to buy Fairies in Dreamland Coloring Book
| Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon Canada | Book Depository |
Facebook Fan Group
Fans of Fairies in Dreamland have created a Facebook group to show your beautiful colorings from this book.  You can join here and escape to dreamland with others 🙂
Happy coloring x
Lea
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