Enchanted Forest: An Inky Quest and Coloring book (Activity Books, Mindfulness and Meditation, Illustrated Floral Prints)

I started doing the adult coloring thing a while ago after a friend said it was very stress-reducing and fun. Of course I loved it right away. I had a couple of cheap coloring books and then I started hearing all of the hype about the Johanna Basford books. I started off with Lost Ocean, which I think is beautiful. After a while, I purchased this one and I was blown away. The paper is VERY thick and neither my Staedtler nor Stabilo fineliner pens bleed through the pages. While I love both books of the books I have, this one has fewer (extraordinarily tiny) details. Don't get me wrong, it has a lot of small details, just less than the other book. It's a bit easier to color. If you plan on coloring on marker/pen, you're going to need fineliners for a lot of it. Again, both are just lovely. I also thought it was great how this came with a color-able and removable dust cover. Just another thing to color and a very nice additional. It also has a large, fold out image at the end to color (large as in SEVERAL pages). There is also a fun little treasure hunt throughout the book. You look for little things throughout it and get to a "door" at the end where you have to put in your "collected" pieces" -- very nice touch. If you don't want to do that aspect, you don't have to, but it's a nice option. If you're just looking for passive coloring, it's great for that too. I do have to say, about both this and the Lost Ocean book, is that they may not be good for people with bad sight or people who do not enjoy coloring many many very tiny details. It can definitely be overwhelming and these are a bit different than other coloring books. I would also warn to test markers on the back pages before using them in the book to make sure there is no bleeding. I think things like regular sharpies may bleed a little. Better safe than sorry.

Johanna Basford is the designer who started my hobby of adult coloring books with her genre defining book, "Secret Garden". With her newest book, "Enchanted Forest", she builds upon the beautiful designs that I have come to expect from her. As with her earlier book, I love that even the inside of the dust cover as well as the cover of the book itself give me an opportunity to spend hours coloring. There are so many wonderful woodland creatures to color, I could (and will) spend many hours with this book. Apart from the fun of coloring, the book is a quest for certain items. Some of these items "unlock" the castle door - which provides you with a beautiful fold-out four page design. At the front of the book, a visual list is given of which items are hidden as well as how many are available throughout the book to find. At the end of the book, there is a visual key that tells you which items are included in which picture. The book is a nice weight of paper but it is not perforated and almost every marker I have bleeds through. I can use my pencils and my gel pens fairly easily. As with most story/adventure/hidden object coloring books, the designs are printed on both sides of the paper. The designs are rather intricate and I find that I like to use my pencils sharpened to a fine point when filling in the smallest of these areas. I was so pleased to find this book and my new, relaxing hobby of coloring. I design needlework for my "day job" but that contains a lot of stress (deadlines, trying to perfect the pattern, etc.) Coloring has become my way of relaxing at the end of a day (with music in the background, too!) I love to watch television but I have found that ending my day with my coloring books gives me a much easier time of falling asleep.

This is an adult coloring book that features forest creatures and plants. There’s also an additional quest to find hidden objects and a maze. The images are printed are printed on thicker paper, on each side of a page, and vary in difficulty and detail. In short, this is a fantastic coloring book! I love everything about it. First, the images; they are varied in difficulty and subject. Some are single page images that feature a single animal. Some are scenes that span two pages. At the very end, is a most awesome surprise image that spans 4 pages. Also, please note that the book has a book sleeve which is reversible – both sides can be colored in. Additionally, the actual cover of the book is also available to color in. So while there are only 86 pages to this book, there are well over 170 images to color in. The paper quality is above what I expected. I have been using markers and I have not had a single bleed through yet. Also, I am a bit tough on my coloring books – I bend them and toss them across the bed and shove them in the closet at night. The binding has held through all that. Yes, even when I crack the book wide open to color right near the middle seem. I have not had one single page pop out. I like the idea of this quest – finding the hidden objects to unlock the castle and the final magnificent 4 page image. Of course, I have already peeked at it. I think that quest angle makes the book reusable for story telling to younger kids. If you’re extra creative, you can make up an enchanted forest tale as your kids hunt through the images for the hidden critters and plants. While this is indeed an adult coloring book, I think older kids who are into details would enjoy it as well.

Enchanting is definitely the perfect word to describe this coloring book. The illustrations are so whimsical. Each one is different. They used high quality paper so no matter what you medium you use to bring the page to life, there is no risk of it bleeding through to the next page. I bought several different coloring books by different illustrators just before Christmas. This book was more expensive than the others; but, worth every cent and more. It will hold the interest of a novice or experienced artist. If this is your first attempt at the new hobby of adult coloring, I would highly recommend this book or others in this series. At first, I felt the illustrations were a bit intimidating as I am a complete novice. But, I found it so easy to start on one small part of each illustration and then let my imagination go from there. I just can't say enough about how much I enjoy coloring in these books. I have been using watercolor pencils. I think I will be investing in more expensive pencils in the very near future. I wanted to be sure that I enjoyed this new hobby. My husband & I recently went on a "vacation" with his uncle who was widowed a little over a year ago. We felt bad that he no longer had a travel companion. Well, I pulled out my book & pencils every evening. I found that concentrating on which colors I wanted to apply where helped me to relax after some very, very long & frustrating days. It probably saved the relationship between our uncle and myself. Of course, the bottle of wine I killed off one night after a particularly trying day didn't hurt either. It's also nice to be able to put the book down when you are tired and not have to worry about where to pick up. Just open the book & let your imagination go.

This color book for adults is a pleasurable experience. All the pictures are beautiful and inspiring. A number of different colorings can be used or combined. I tend to use metallic colored pencils for the best effect. Paper is watercolor safe in most instances. I liked the artist renderings so much that I have purchased a number of books from the same artist.

Love her books! I have four of them! Best coloring books and she gives you awesome and different things to color! I am looking forward to getting her other books. I started with Small Victories and just love it!

Update: I ordered a second copy because I liked the book so much, but the pages on the new book are cream instead of white (not as pretty and the colors are dampened), and It Does Bleed Through. I'm talking regular markers--major bleed through. The fifth printing has bright white pages and no bleed through, the seventh printing bleeds through terribly and isn't worth your time. See photos for examples. In the photos, the book on the left is the 7th printing, the book on the right is the 5th. The photos show the copyright page as well as examples of bleeding versus non-bleeding paper. (Previous review below) This book is so, so cool. I had browsed it online but not purchased because I now prefer seeing coloring books in person to check the quality--a few books purchased online weren't as good/thick quality paper as I'd hoped, or the illustrations were pixelated and looked cheap. I finally saw this one in a store, and wow. It's beautiful, imaginative, and stunning overall. The reason I write this review is to add a comment on markers. The book is so lovely I wanted to upgrade my markers, which are the skinny crayola super-tips. These markers are okay and good for the price, but downsides are that the scented ones smell awful (to me) and the tips fray sometimes, which makes it hard to color where you want to. I have a set of 36 Pentel markers that I love, but I love them so much that I really wanted more colors--unfortunately, that is the most colors make. Here is the helpful note: These markers do not bleed through the pages of this book. I am not bearing down hard, but I have layered some colors twice (carefully), and it's fine. I was all set today to buy a nice Prismacolor set, but checked other reviews first to make sure they were good in the book, since the book's loveliness was the whole point of a better marker experience. Other reviewers said Prismacolors bleed through, so I won't be spending big bucks on a set for this book. Hope that helps anyone who was wondering about markers on the pages of this little wonder! PS--There ARE a lot of leaves, which some people find repetitive, and I can agree with that viewpoint. But I am going to mix them up with fall colors, and it's still an amazing work of illustrations.

One of my favorite adult coloring books I've purchased. I plan on completing every page in this. Too bad some inks / watercolor seep through a bit but I am making it work because I really like to use mixed media when coloring. And I did break the binding trying to get closer to the edges but that was my fault, I should've just accepted I couldn't get in there lol. If you want a book that you can get every single centimeter colored then that won't be possible in this, however it doesn't detract from the overall quality imo. I can't wait until the entire thing is colored and maybe I'll try and reglue the broken binding lol. Rip. But the paper is really thick and nice other than the tiny bit of bleeding I've seen with my watercolors (I know it's not for watercoloring, but doing it anyway lol). I have been using colored pencils, sakura gelly ball pens of all types (no bleeding of those even when pooling glaze) and my watercolors. Only saw a LITTLE bleeding with too much watercolor. But no bleeding at all with careful light layers that I let dry. Also super love the variety of images. It's called Enchanted Forest so one might think it's all leaves and trees, and there are many of them, but there is a raven and a hot air balloon and castles and treehouses and flowers and butterflies and so many other types of things to color, makes for great variety and added interest. And her line work is lovely for coloring. Nice variety of sized lines and nice use of negative space and black. Would recommend for anyone who likes to color. ♥

Hermoso y de excelente calidad

Wonderfull book! I'm amazed with the details of this book, it is beautifuly done! It arrived very fast, very well also. In the picture the cover and the first page I painted. I'm totaly in love with the book!! Great job! Thanks!

Muito lindo!

Amazing product! This is the first book I've ordered and so happy that I ordered it after going through endless other colouring book options! The paper is good and thick. Great for pencil colours/ pens/ water colours. The designs are really good..Love the gold detailing on the cover page too! Definitely going to order more from this publication :)

Beautiful adult colouring book. Highly recommended