The Colouring Community

I LOVE being part of the Colouring Community. Never before has such a diverse, talented group of people had the platform we currently have to inspire, create and showcase our work. So I thought, why not gather together a handful (or a bookful?!) of these individuals to colour a book together.

I asked Colourists to post a picture of themselves and their colouring on Instagram and tag it with #showyourcolours. Next, I (carefully) dismantled a copy of Ivy and the Inky Butterfly and sent pages of the book to lots of different Colourists, all over the world. We asked people to colour the pages they received, then send them back to me.

 

Making the Collaboration Coloring Book

For the past 10 months envelopes from around the world have been arriving back at the studio, each one containing another page from the book.

Every page has been coloured with love and is a unique piece of art. The colour palettes, materials and techniques used are all so different and I love each one I clap eyes on!

So without further ado, I’m proud, honoured and delighted to share with you, The Collaboration Colouring Book! I’ve split the book into 4 sections, and I’ll be sharing the first 2 parts this week, and the second 2 next week. Be prepared for an inspiration bomb of ideas and lovliness to hit your pixels!

Huge and heartfelt thanks to all the brilliant Colourists who have taken part – I hope we have inspired even more people to pick up pens and pencils and show their colours!

Jx

 

Part 1 : The Colourists:

thevioletmarkery, gypsy.phoenixrose, mrs_candikane26, leenmargot, magicalcolouring, iamcherodz, kristenlambertdelis, encoloringstories, sylvias_kleursels, vicky_arb, lauracolorstoo, jens_colouring, frances_1989, nicolescolouring, spring_in_norway

thevioletmarkery, UK

Favourite Colouring Tools: Rotring Tikky Graphic 0.1 Posca 0.7mm Pens
Prismacolor Premier Pencils

Favourite Colour: All the blues!

Here’s a little about my pages: I used all my favourite tools to colour my pages.
I love working with greens and blues so these were the main colours I used as I find them to be ‘happy’ and soft complimentary colours. When I have finished colouring I can’t class a piece as ‘done’ until I have outlined around all the black lines (thanks OCD!). I also love to highlight areas with dots (no idea why, it’s just something I’ve always done!) mainly in black and white with the occasional dip into silver or gold!

 

gypsy.phoenixrose, Australia

Favourite Colouring Tools: Acrylic Paint, Gel Pens, Glitter

Favourite Colour: Lavender and Purple

Say Hello on Social: IG : Gypsy-Phoenix Rose, WB: phoenixlilyrose.weebly.com

Here’s a little about my pages: I didn’t have a structured approach. The story line of the two pages connected my younger self to my grandparents and hence the colours and medium were applied through feeling, and it was important that a part of me was represented in Ivy, and the colours and metallics and glitters combined gave a sense of Ivy’s reality about to merge in to the magical adventure that awaited her.

 

mrs_candikane26, USA

Favourite Colouring Tools: Coloured Pencils, Fine Liners

Say Hello on Social: IG: Mrs_CandiKane26

Here’s a little about my pages: I used my fine tip sharpies to color my pages to give it a bright look. I used a bright color palette when choosing the colors I used.

 

leenmargot, France

Favourite Colouring Tools: Pencils

Favourite Colour: Blue

Say Hello on Social: IG: Leenmargot, FB: Leen Margot, YT: Leen Dargot

Here’s a little about my pages: I use pencils (prismacolours) and soft pastel for the background.

magicalcolouring, Germany

Favourite Colouring Tools: Coloured pencils (faber castell / holbein / irojiten), Gel Pens

Favourite Colour: Purple

Say Hello on Social: IG: magicalcolouring

Here’s a little about my pages: I’ve used Holbein pencils because of the high pigmentation.

 

iamcherodz, Malaysia

Favourite Colouring Tools: Pencils

Favourite Colour: Red, Black, White

Say Hello on Social: IG: iamcherodz

Here’s a little about my pages: Two main: Staedtler Luna Watercolour pencil

Buncho poster colour for background

I chose these two because they are easy to handle. At first I’ve decided to use pencil colours for all the objects and water colour for the background. Once I tried water to blend the pencil colours, it turns out awesome. The color becomes intense. So water color all over! A little bit of shading here and there and I add bubble to bring up the magical sense in the illustration.

kristenlambertbedelis, Australia

Favourite Colouring Tools: Faber Castell Polychromos, Staedtler Triplus fine liners, uniball black fine liner, Staedtler ergo soft pencils

Favourite Colour: Green

Say Hello on Social: IG: @kristenlambertbedelis, FB: Secret Garden Gallery, FB: Friends Who Colour

Here’s a little about my pages: I used all my favourite tools in my colourings. After reading the story I added the wood background using my favourite technique – pointillism. I’ve called the pages ‘Through the Door into the World of Enchantia’!

 

encoloringstories, Indonesia

Favourite Colouring Tools: Pencils

Favourite Colour: Pink

Say Hello on Social: IG: encoloringstories

Here’s a little about my pages: As you can tell, my fave color is pink. Therefore for the pages, I went with pink color tones for ‘one color garden’ theme.

Other than smudging the soft pastels with cotton ball for the background, there’s no other special techniques. Just followed my guts and took bunch of photos along the way, to see what it will look like from different views.

sylvias_kleursels, Netherlands

Favourite Colouring Tools: Pencils

Favourite Colour: Purple

Say Hello on Social: IG: sylvias_kleursels, WB: www.sylviaskleursels.weebly.com

Here’s a little about my pages: I used prismacolor premier for my two pages. They are very soft and there for blend so good! I love the colour palette purple / orange / red so I tried to make a shiny purple background with my favourite color of flowers. I didn’t use any blend material, just used the pencils.

I draw a dotted line to show the flight of the butterfly over the two pages to connect with them each other!

vicky_arb, Colombia

Favourite Colouring Tools: Lapices de Colores (Prismacolor), Soft Pastel

Favourite Colour: Aquamarine, Turquoise

Say Hello on Social: IG: vicky_arb

Here’s a little about my pages: My style is to use the actual colors of each thing, for example: the green leaves, the red mushrooms.

I prefer colored pencils, but I like to use markers. Sometimes I use a white gel pen to give details.

In some places I prefer to use soft pastel.

 

lauracolorstoo, USA

Favourite Colouring Tools: Prismacolor Pencils, Yarka Pan Watercolors, Acrylics, Markers

Favourite Colour: Mint Green

Say Hello on Social: IG: lauracolorstoo, YT: youtube.com/c/lauracolorstoo, WB: http://laurafolio.com

Here’s a little about my pages: I used prismacolor 24ct for this page, and chose the colour scheme to reflect a bright, cheery day. I read the story, and wanted to depict Ivy ringing the bell, so I drew her into the scene by looking at other pages to do the fan art. After that I colored the whole page, then used white gel pen to cover some of the outlines. Then I added stickles glitter (it shouldn’t travel!) all over for a final, magical touch.

 

jens_colouring, Scotland

Favourite Colouring Tools:I love my Faber Castell Polychromos, Staedtler ergosoft and the Staedtler Triplus range.

Favourite Colour:Difficult to choose! But I love purples and greens.

Say Hello on Social: IG: jens_colouring

Here’s a little about my pages:I used Polychromos and Triplus color to color my page finishing using a Posca paint pen to add the dots and glitter glue / pen to add a little sparkle!

I picked a rainbow colour scheme as I think Inky Ivy is a magical story and rainbows are always magical to see! Wea re lucky to see lots of rainbows here even double ones and they are a joy to look at! No special techniques just lots of blending and having fun.

 

frances_1989, UK

Favourite Colouring Tools: Coloured Pencils – Prismacolor and Caran D’ache Luminance, Watercolour, metallic and acrylic paint., Gel pen for details

Favourite Colour: Blue

Say Hello on Social: IG: Frances_1989, YT: Colouring Frances

Here’s a little about my pages: I used my favourite pencils, Luminance and prismacolor. I wanted to create a fairy dust wind to blow the letters, as I think it adds some extra magic to the story. I just had to use some stickles as well for that extra sparkle! I wanted to use more natural colours for the plants, flowers and bee. But I have used some bright blue, green and purples for a bit of pop. When colouring I often layer my colours, which is what I did here. I have also used some Gansai Tambi Starry colour paint to accent some of the pieces in this picture.

 

nicolescolouring, UK

Favourite Colouring Tools: Coloured Pencils, Metallic Gel Pens, Fineliners

Favourite Colour: Blues, purples, greens, and pinks…a little gold, Too many!

Say Hello on Social: IG: nicolescolouring

Here’s a little about my pages: I used my amazing polychromos for the majority of the pages and added a little details with a gold and white gel pen.

I didn’t exactly have a plan with the colour palette I just came up with the colours as I went along and at the last minute chose to do the background as a ‘twilight/sunset’.

spring_in_norway, Norway

Favourite Colouring Tools: Coloured Pencils

Favourite Colour: Green

Say Hello on Social: IG: spring_in_norway

Here’s a little about my pages: I used Koh-I-Noor Polycolor and Lyra Rembrandt-Polycol. I searched the Pinterest for ‘Cherry Blossom’ and found this beautiful photo with red and purple tones. I liked it very much because it was unusual and little bit mysterious. I used it as an inspiration.

Part 2 coming soon…

 

Before you go…

Don’t forget you can listen to the story of Ivy and the Inky Butterfly whilst you colour! Download my free audiobook, read by me!

If you like this, then you should probably sign up for my weekly Inky Email newsletter. No junk or spam, just a weekly letter from me to you full of inspiration, studio sneak peeks and cool projects like this!

And don’t forget, my new book, World of Flowers is out in October! You can pre-order a copy today 🙂