Kokeshi Doll Colouring Pages
It struck me the other day that I haven’t created a new downloadable colouring book in absolutely ages. So I’ve put a new one up on Etsy – it’s chock-full of hand-drawn kokeshi dolls for you to colour and includes some fairly blank ones for you to decorate yourself, as well as plenty with lovely floral and geometric patterns that you can let your pencils loose on.
You can buy the Kokeshi Colouring book from my Etsy store …
… but I’ve also made you a sampler that you can download for free, to get a taste for what’s in the book.
I hope you enjoy these – happy colouring!
Going with the flow – floral pattern
Part of the new calmer lifestyle I’m trying to adopt, I’m throwing out all my design career goals and schedules and plans and ‘going with the flow’. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to do any work for studios – but I will only do so when I have the time and when it’s a call/assignment/trend that really calls out to me. There are opportunities at all of the studios I work with for this, but I have a tendency to try to challenge myself to new things (not always a bad thing, of course) or to do a gazillion designs for one assignment, rather than one considered one.
Mostly, though, I want it to mean getting back to enjoying creating art that I love – both creating and looking at. Enjoying the process and just really embedding myself in whatever I’m creating (this is a mindful thing in itself, I believe, from what I’ve read).
Friday night, I did some loose pen and ink doodling – flowers (so often flowers!) and Saturday night I dived into Illustrator and dug into my most preferred method – and then mixed it up a bit. I had such a lovely time (I did watch something at the same time – that’s a habit I may struggle to break – The Hundred Foot Journey, which was a lovely film to watch) doing and was really pleased with the result.
My favourite is the grey blue background. I like the faded silhouette leaves in the background, but I wonder if they might be better done to fit in much more in the gaps of the main design, rather than just as a repeat behind them.
Anyway, the point is that this is what I love to do. Create patterns from the heart – whether based on drawings, paintings or completely digital. Explore colour combinations and test out what different background colours do to a design (I love how different purely changing the background colour can make the feel of a design). Play about with fitting motifs together in a pleasing way.
I really like the effect of having the black and white collection of flowers, juxtaposed with the colourful print/cutout effect ones. This is a bit of a new thing for me.
The whole process of this was free of stress or anxiety. It was just for me, without the need to meet a brief, meet a deadline, or try to work in new methods. Proper relaxation. I hope I get to do more and more of it.
Holiday Flowers: New Colouring Book and FREE sampler
While on our holidays this year (in a very beautiful Cornish pair of villages – Kingsand and Cawsand), I did quite a bit of drawing full pages of stylised flowers – this seems to be my go-to relaxation technique – and I shared most of them on Instagram or Facebook. A few people said they’d love to colour them, so I decided to make a new colouring book largely comprising the flowers I’d drawn on holiday. You can buy it from my Esty store and here is a free sampler to download, too. I’ve done this sampler a bit differently – instead of a single design to colour in, I’ve done a page with snippets from each of the designs. Please do feed back to me on which you prefer, and of course, feel free to share your coloured designs with me.
Another colouring book – and a free sample
Well, it’s taken a while, sorry, but I’ve uploaded my second printable colouring book to Etsy.
And I am, of course, offering you a free sample as a little taster – hopefully it will whet your appetite enough to buy the whole book, but even if it doesn’t, I hope you have lots of fun colouring it in! Feel free to share your colouring efforts on My Facebook Page or My Instagram Page so we can all see!
This books all about the flowers and they’re all in a kind of Art Nouveau symmetrical style (one of my favourite designs/patterns to make). I’m hoping to create a new book every few weeks if I can, and will post them here, along with a taster, whenever I have a new one ready.
Have fun!