by Lee Il-sun & Jo Hye Rim
on 2017
Style: Paper: medium quality, single page illustrations
Format: Dust Jacket
Beautiful Korean book filled with a variety of whimsical images with varying levels of detail
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Secretly and Happily Coloring Book Video Review
I hope you enjoyed the video review of Secretly and Happily a Korean coloring book.
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Secretly and Happily Coloring Book  Review
These Korean artists have produced a number of coloring books that are all equally gorgeous. Sadly I have had many of the books by the same artists sitting in my to do stack for far too long.  You can see one that made it out of the stack here – which is Christmas Nutcracker. In Secretly and Happily a whimsical array of colored illustrations is presented.  The title is a little confusing to me, as often happens with a translation. I suspect that the theme of the book is the things that make the artists happy.
Cover & Layout
The matte dust jacket of Secretly and Happily Coloring Book has a lovely dusty pink background with a partially colored image on the front.  From the style of the front cover you can see that it is a whimsical, cutesy style book and this is indicative of the pages inside.  The lovely gelato bar cover image is also included in the book for you to color as well.
On the back, there is a lovely wreath of flowers in line art. You can of course color any of this line art. As the cover is matte with a slight texture you should be able to use any medium.
The coloring book proper has a card cover with a gold printed image of a cute little girl flying a plane over a city filled with flowers. It is adorably cute!  The floral images on the back of the dust jacket are also printed in gold on the card cover.
Secretly and Happily Coloring Book measures approximately 25cm x 25cm.
Ancillary Pages
A plain text title page starts the book with copyright information on reverse.  This would be the best place to test out your mediums.  An extended title page with the lovely rose line art from the back cover starts the book.  This would be the best place to test out your mediums.
Layout
Unusually, for a Korean coloring book the illustrations have been printed on a single side page. On the reverse of each image is a lovely frame and a small piece of text.  This would be a great spot to note down how you felt when you colored the picture, name and date, mediums used and any other special details or notes you want to remember. Of course, you could just leave it blank as well 🙂 The paper is off white, medium quality and smooth to the touch.  As always, I would pop a piece of paper behind the page to ensure that there are no dents or bleed through to the other side.
5 pages of message cards are a lovely treat at the end of the book
Coloring Book Images and Illustrations
If you are a fan of whimsy these cutesy illustrations may well steal your heart.   The artist has included something for everyone in the book, making it a great all rounder coloring book.
There are pages that have large open spaced images suitable for colorists with a minor visual or motor impairment. You can color cute teepees, palm leaves, teacups and hearts. There are gorgeous scene based illustrations featuring a cute little girl.  You will see the little girl sitting on the roof overlooking the city, in trees, hot air ballooning, flying a plane and even picking up an ice-cream at the ice cream stand. Some of the pages are full illustrations that take up the entire page with a lot of detail.  These are great for when you have more time to spend and commit to coloring a page.
The line art is black and crisp and very easy to see.  There are varying line weights used in the illustrations which shows texture and dimension in each illustration.
Please click on an image to view more detail
[foogallery id=”11878″]Bonus
At the end of the book there are 5 pages of message cards.  These little cards are printed on the same paper with space to write address on reverse. Although the pages are not perforated, there is a cutting line guide for you to remove the pages from the book. If you were hesitant about coloring a picture in the book, wanted to test your mediums or just wanted an itty bitty project -these would be a great spot to start.
Detail Level
Where to buy Secretly and Happily Coloring Book
| Etailer |
Happy coloring x Lea
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