Twilight Garden Coloring Book (aka Blomster Mandala)

Twilight Garden Coloring Book: Published in Sweden as "Blomstermandala" Buy on Amazon US| Buy on Book Depository|Buy on Amazon UK|Buy on Amazon Ca
by Maria Trolle
Published by Gibbs Smith on March 21st 2017
Style: double page printing
Pages: 96
Format: Glue & Stitched, Hard back

I received this product for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the product or the content of my review.

Goodreads

A collection of illustrations to color from Swedish illustrator, Maria Trolle, available in North America for the first time.
Maria Trolle’s Twilight Garden coloring book collection contained in luxurious hardback features gardens, flowers, and cute creatures common to a Scandinavian landscape.

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Twilight Garden Coloring Book Video Review

I hope you enjoyed the video review of  Twilight Garden Coloring Book by Swedish artist and illustrator, Maria Trolle.

Twilight Garden Coloring Book Review

I fell in love with Maria Trolle’s art work last March or so.    I was looking at the Pen Store website. As my birthday was coming up soon I thought I would buy myself a few little treats.     When I seen the cover of  Blomster Mandala by Maria Trolle with its black matte cover and gold foiling it really stood out.   Most coloring books do not have that look to them.     It looked so elegant and whimsical at the same time.    I had to have it, of course, and a few more as well.    It’s funny that every book I bought that day for myself as a birthday present I’ve adored. All of the artists have become artists that I would keep buying everything that they produce.

Maria Trolle originally released Blomster Mandala in Sweden.   This gorgeous coloring book so inspired by her love of nature and gardening was out of reach for many colorists faced with the hefty shipping costs from Sweden.

When I found out that US publishers, Gibbs Smith had gained the imprint rights to print Maria’s book in English under the name of  Twilight Garden, I was delighted.   This meant that finally colorists around the world could enjoy Maria’s art at a very reasonable price.

I knew that Gibbs Smith would create a quality coloring book for the English edition.    They would not scrimp on the look and feel of the book, as they had already published Hanna Karlzon’s books,  Daydreams and Summer Nights  as English imprints of a high standard.

I am going to tell you straight up how the English edition, Twilight Garden stacks up against the original, Blomster Mandala.    Twilight Garden has been beautifully reproduced virtually the same as Blomster Mandala, with a few minor differences.    The English edition is just as good as the original.

Cover & Layout

The cover of  Twilight Garden features the same design as Blomster Mandala.     A matte black background features a gorgeous colored image of a rabbit surrounded by flowers.   The title details are in gold foil with a cute bird perched on the letter “I” also in gold foil.      This reflects the same design as on Blomster Mandala but with a different shade of gold foil used.

The binding on Twilight Garden coloring book is a similar shade of gold to that of the title on the book.    On Blomster Mandala the binding color was more of an olive gold.

The cover on Blomster Mandala (not the pages) is a couple of mm larger than the cover of Twilight Garden.    The cover thickness appears the same on Twilight Garden as it is on Blomster Mandala.

Ancillary Pages

Matte black protective paper features at the beginning and end of  Twilight Garden coloring book.    It complements the black cover and gives the book a luxurious feel.

The book starts with a text based title page and copyright information over leaf.     The copyright page has been decorated with a lovely bird carrying a banner which reads “to my family” a feather floats at the bottom of the page.

The nameplate page features a lovely wreath of flowers.    This is the same as the Swedish edition of the book but with text in English.

Layout

All of the illustrations in Twilight Garden are orientated portrait style and printed on both sides of  the off white, 150 gsm paper.        The paper feels slightly thicker than the paper used in Blomster Mandala (or it could be my imagination).

There are 32 double page scenes within the book and 16 pages with a black background.

All of the illustrations used in Blomster Mandala have been incorporated in Twilight Garden in the same order and positioning.

Images & Illustrations

Maria Trolle has a love of gardening and this shows in her coloring book.    Twilight Garden features an abundance of  flowers of all different varieties and in different arrangements and settings to challenge the colorist.

You will also find other things in this beautiful garden including the creatures that inhabit it like rabbits, birds and frogs.     You will also find beautiful fruit and vegetables in this  garden as well as gardening implements.   There is string and shears, watering cans, barrows and bird houses to color.

Maria’s art has a large dash of whimsy to it that makes it very appealing to lovers of whimsy and colorists that love nature and flowers.

The line art is black, crisp and on the whole a medium line.     Maria uses pointillism  (dots) within her work to give it shading and shadowing.   The use of these small dots is very useful to colorists who can add shading in these areas if they wish.

The stand out feature in Twilight Garden is the number of flowers and the way that they are presented.    You will find flowers in the mouth of animals,  animals surrounded by flowers, bouquets, flowing from toy style cottages, in barrows, wreaths and framing other illustrations.     Every time I look at this book, I am constantly amazed at the variety of  flowers that have been used and the number of ways they have been illustrated.

Colorists that have visual impairment may find the bulk of the images challenging due to the amount of detail packed in a page.    It is such a lovely book, that it may be using your magnifying lamp and just coloring a small area at a time.   In this way, you are not distracted by the number of elements on the page.

Colorists with motor skill impairment may also face the same challenges.  Although there are elements within images that have large areas of open space,  many have a lot of small details.    Using a color wash rather than focusing on individual detail may be the solution.

The binding is a little stiff at first,  but after opening the book a couple of times and gently pushing down on it, it has relaxed and will relax with further use.

Most of the single page illustrations in Twilight Garden have been positioned beautifully on the page allowing white space around the illustration for ease of coloring and adding background effects, if you wish.

Please click on an image to view more detail.

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Summary of  Differences between Twilight Garden and Blomster Mandala

• The cover of Twilight Garden appears to be approximately 2mm larger than the cover of  Blomster Mandala
• Binding on Twilight Garden is a golden color as opposed to an olive/gold on Blomster Mandala
• Slight difference in shade of gold foiling used
• The cover art on Twilight Garden has a slight difference in color tone
• Twilight Garden has English text as opposed to Blomster Mandala which is in Swedish.
• The paper in Twilight Garden feels a smidgen thicker than Blomster Mandala, but I am not 100% sure on this, as the difference is slight.
• Blomster Mandala has a cool white paper whereas Twilight Garden has an off white paper

Where to buy Twilight Garden Coloring Book

Amazon US

Amazon Canada

Amazon UK

Book Depository

See my Pinterest board of colored images from Twilight Garden Coloring Book here.
Happy coloring x

Lea

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