Judy Balchin studied art at Cardiff College of Art. Following
this, she specialised in graphic design at Kent Institute of Art
and Design in Maidstone.
After working as a graphics assistant at the BBC Television Centre,
she joined Adverkit International Ltd as a lettering artist. This
began her love affair with letters, producing book jackets,
advertising logos and television titles over many years. During
this time, she also became involved in the craft world.
She has appeared on television, worked as a craft demonstrator,
designed craft kits and run workshops. She has produced more than
twenty books on various crafts and is the author of many articles
for craft magazines. She continues to enjoy her creative world and
is currently working on her latest book.
The book itself is paperback and A4 in size with a glue-bound
spine. The images are printed single-sided and do not enter the
spine. The paper is a good thickness and bright white with a little
tooth meaning you can use just about any colouring medium you
fancy. My water-based pens shadowed and bled a little but this
isn’t an issue because there is no image on the reverse. I found it
very easy to blend and shade with my Faber-Castell Polychromos
pencils. This book is part of a series and each book starts with 7
double-sided pages of coloured images that are contained within the
book and then changes to single-sided black line images. This book
contains images of all things Art Nouveau. It includes animals,
flowers, leaves, fruit, and many more natural things. There are a
number of beautiful, elongated flowing images of women, page
borders, scrolls and banners, frames and much more. Everything is
drawn in a characteristic Art Nouveau style that is really
unmistakable. This book is unlike most other colouring books and is
more of a collection of similarly themed images rather than a
cohesive book that tells a story. Many of the pages consist of a
number of small images grouped together on the same page that
aren’t especially related to each other. To begin with, I found
this quite off-putting because I love books that tell a story,
however, the images are very nice and are great for practising
blending and shading with coloured pencils and alcohol markers
because the images are printed single-sided. This book contains
over 190 Art Nouveau designs.
In terms of mental health, this book doesn’t have an awful lot of
impact on it, though if you love Art Nouveau, it’s sure to calm you
down and focus your thoughts. Because of the variety of image
sizes, it’s a good book for those of you with fluctuating
conditions because if you can’t focus much you can just spend a few
minutes colouring one of the smaller images and then complete the
larger images on days where you’re able to concentrate a bit more.
The line thickness is consistent throughout and is medium/thin so
you don’t need perfect vision or fine motor control to be able to
stay within the lines. The images vary in intricacy and detail
levels with some having lots of teeny tiny spaces and others being
much larger, open designs. This book doesn’t have any full page
designs, they’re all small motifs that are grouped together so you
can colour just one, or all of them on a page if you’re feeling up
to it. This is a lovely addition to any colouring collection and is
great for practising colouring techniques
*Lucy Fyles - Colouring in the Midst of the Madness*
June 2015 This is an 80 page paperback book full of designs from
the Art Nouveau period, including animals, statues, scrolls,
nautical, LOTS of leafy vines, and more. I'm not a big fan of the
style I have to say, but there are some interesting images to
colour here and a variety of different objects rather than one
subject matter. The illustrator, Judy Balchin, is a UK-based
graphic designer, craft demonstrator and artist/illustrator
extraordinaire. She has dabbled in the world of television, logo
designing and even needle-felting, so has a lot of background and
experience in the creative world. Art Nouveau was popular at the
turn of the century and is identified by its ornamental curves,
whip-like lines, and asymmetry- some great characteristics for
colouring book designs. If you're into blending plants and flowers,
take a look at some of the pages in the book and notice how how
leaves and stalks are heavily featured throughout. The paper
quality is very good, thick enough for most non-alcohol markers and
all one sided. An interesting thing about this book which I haven't
seen before, is that the first few pages are filled with
pre-coloured illustrations to give the reader pallet inspiration
before they begin. I think it's an excellent idea as it shows you
popular colours of the style and time period, which you wouldn't
necessarily know otherwise. I'd recommend this book to colourists
who have a passion for art; particularly sculptures, statues,
stained glass, and nature. I'm sure fans of historical design would
love it, as it seems to be very true to the period. Here are my
finished pages. I absolutely LOVED the stylised typography at the
back of the book, which I'm now using as my signature on all blog
posts :) - See more at:
http://colourwithclaire.weebly.com/blog/the-art-nouveau-colouring-book-by-judy-balchin#sthash.HRUZX2Xi.dpuf
*colourwithclaire.weebly.com*
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