Dagdrömmar

The Daydreams coloring book is one of my favorites and you'll soon see why. Many of the coloring books that we see today are printed in English and then translated to other languages. Daydreams is different – it was first printed in Swedish and then translated into English. 

Daydreams by Hanna Karlzon

Description

Hanna Karlzon is a Swedish-based illustrator and has published many coloring books, the first being Daydreams. This book has 96 pages and it is a hardbound edition. The book feels luxurious and high quality when you hold it in your hands. It looks good enough to put on your coffee table!

Artwork

Daydreams is filled with beautiful pictures and the main subjects are usually flowers, animals and insects. But Hanna's illustrations are very different from say Johanna Basford. 

While Johanna goes for intricate designs - often with tiny spaces to color - Hanna's pictures are more open and not so detailed. Some of the images appear realistic but many are combined with whimsical elements like gems, sparkly items like keys or stars etc. 

Daydreams also contains many portraits of beautiful women, something that not many artists do well. It's great for practicing skin and hair coloring. The entire book gives the feeling of being set in a fantasy land where little girls ride on birds or insects, snails carry literal houses on their backs and various animals collect gems. 

The element of whimsy gives you the freedom to use any color that you like. Why stick to just green for leaves or blue for water? Let your imagination run wild and use colors like pinks or purples for plants or green for the sky. 

Paper Quality

Daydreams is printed double-sided but the paper quality is very good. In fact, it has the best paper of all my coloring books at 160 GSM! The paper is ivory colored and not bright white either. There are a few double-page spreads but most of them are confined to a single page. 

Since the book is hardbound, it's a little difficult to color the double spreads but it can be done. In fact, some of the double spreads are composed in such a way that you can think of it as two separate images. You can color them in complementary colors or completely different from each other.

Suitable Mediums

• Colored pencils - esp Polychromos - are phenomenal!
• Watercolor works well too
• Pens don't bleed through
• Water-based markers are quite good
• No alcohol markers
• Soft pastel work great

Value

Daydreams currently retails for around $12 and is a fantastic value at the price. I found books with cheap, printer quality paper that sell for the same price! The images in this book are perfect for using metallic or glitter pens. So break out your shiny tools and start bringing them to life!