Welcome to Colour me well
Are you finding it difficult to de stress? Do you need an activity to focus on to enable you to clear your mind and relax? If the answer is yes this could be the book for you. I created this book during Lockdown and found the action of creating images engaging and relaxing.
Colour Me Well, is a colouring-in book with a difference. The images within this book are all hand drawn original pictures, using the technique of Madhubani, an ancient traditional folk art. This beautiful style builds up images using intricate borders and patterns which are then painted in brilliant colour. These paintings were used to decorate mud walls in basic dwellings to celebrate a wedding or religious ceremony. I have taken the technique and explored ways of applying it to western images as well as traditional ones.
Delivery day!
My first ever colouring book has been published and has just arrived. We captured the moment here.
A flip through the book.....
The original drawings take on a whole different character when coloured in and the interpretations are infinite, depending on the media used to colour them, and the artists own preferences.
The book is also a teaching tool so you can unleash your creativity. While you are colouring the drawings you will be picking up the technique and can apply it to your own ideas. For this purpose I have added a ‘Doodle Page’ opposite each picture for you to try out patterns and invent your own designs.
The acorn picture has been filled in using Faber-Castell brush pens. By layering the colour over itself you can darken the shade or add depth to lighter shades. The leaves that sit behind the front leaves are shaded in a darker colour to add depth and shadow.
The border arches were left uncoloured to display the hatching.
The image of the Rooster has been coloured in using a restricted colour palette ( red, black, yellow, green) and mainly filled in with hatching.
Hatching is a series of parallel lines drawn together to fill an area. This technique is useful for blending and shading colours.
The Fantasy bird has been coloured in using the vibrant colours favoured in Madhubani paintings. Orange and pink are frequently seen together and really make each other zing. I used complimentary colours as a contrast which makes the whole picture vibrant: eg. orange with blue, pink with green.
Proud Peacock was coloured in using coloured pens and hatching. This method of colouring in allows you to blend colours and also shade areas by drawing the lines closer together for darker areas, and wider apart for paler areas. This magnificent bird can be drawn and illustrated in so may different ways and occurs frequently in Madhubani paintings.
Feather. I restricted the colours to blues and yellow in this design as they compliment each other so well. I left the background feathers white to give the effect of weightlessness. The simplicity of the colouring reflects the simplicity of the design.