Book Review: Secret Garden coloring book by Johanna Basford

I’ve been hearing lots lately about this latest trend of colouring books for adults. Apparently they now top the best sellers lists on Amazon! I like all things creative and I like to colour (although I’m kinda crappy at drawing but I do love doodling) so I thought I would take the plunge and purchase one of the colouring books I had been hearing so much about.

I’ve also been seeing lots of adult colouring magazines in my favourite place for buying magazines (the only place I’ve found that sells Threads magazine!), and resisted purchasing one of them for so long since they’re all European and the prices were pretty high. So I purchased Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Coloring Book* by Johanna Basford (strangely a lot cheaper than those magazines!) I liked the style of the drawings, and they’re similar (the flow of the lines I mean) to how I doodle although much much better than anything I could ever draw.

It arrived today just before I put Miss V down for a nap, and as soon as she was asleep I pulled my new markers out of hiding and got started!

The markers I used I also purchased from Amazon. They are the Sargent Art 22-1591 50 Count Fine Tip Classic Markers Pack, Assorted* (pictured below).

They’re not bad, the tips aren’t quite as fine as I was expecting, but the colours are nice and bright and I like how there are many gradients of the same colour. It makes it fun to colour the leaves and such so that they don’t appear “flat”. There are like 6 shades of green alone!

Some of the pages have lots of white space, you can doodle and add to the pictures or just colour what’s pictured. The paper quality is really nice too, it’s thick enough that the marker doesn’t bleed through to the other side. I think that the Secret Garden coloring book is a great purchase if you’re interested in colouring as an easy and fun way to spark some creativity in your life!