I am a HUGE fan of Johanna Basford's books. Secret Garden was the first book I bought, and the one I showed off to everyone I knew until suddenly I was surrounded by colouring fiends (oops... but yay!). What the Secret Garden lacked for me was made up in Enchanted Forest.
The Enchanted Forest is full of deluxe illustrations of woodsy settings, forest creatures, secret underground hideaways and gushing streams. Johanna's books are also interactive with search-and-find activities, areas where you're encouraged to do your own illustrations, and simplistic puzzles/mazes - making this a suitable book also for children.
The paper of Enchanted Forest is a higher quality than that used for Secret Garden. I will be doing a review on Secret Garden where I will go into more detail; but we do find with Enchanted Forest that the paper is smoother however the fineline pens then lack the pigmentation that I usually prefer. I have some Prismacolor pencils on the way to me so we'll see later how those go, as no doubt you will be seeing more pieces from this book in future.
So the first completed piece (excluding the title page) is this image of an underwater cove, full of sunken treasure, bones, creatures and more. I really do love the simplistic & young-at-heart illustration style Johanna has. I know some people find it too cutesy or 'kidsy' but I actually really like it. One of the reasons I prefer using fineline pens with her work is because although you can add shading or further definition if you want - it's not really required in order to make a lovely finished piece.
Once I had completed the piece, the self-critical part of me wished I had not used certain colours here, or not coloured that bit incorrectly there... but overall I was happy with how it turned out. It's different from my mind's eye intentions, but that's ok - because colouring isn't supposed to be a job, just relaxing and fun :)
So for this piece I used to customary Staedtler Triplus 0.3mm Fineliners that we see I use most frequently - plus some shades from the big set of the Stabilo Point 88 0.4mm Fineliners which I purchased about a month ago. Both sets have some similar and identical colours, so I would not recommend you buy both, however i am happy to have backups so it doesn't bother me.
I also used some pens from the Smiggle gel pen pack i have, notably the metallic silver and white for highlighting, and some of the pinks/brown glitters just for an extra sparkle.
The Enchanted Forest basics:
Available: Yes, also from select bookstores.
Price: $17+ AUD
Size: A medium thickness paperback with dust cover - 84 pages at 254mm x 254mm x 14mm, weighing 550g
Paper: Medium thickness and smooth, colour does not go through easily but some pens have less pigmentation and vibrancy as the paper does not 'soak' in the ink. No bleeding.
Designs: Illustrations range from castles, forests, streams, animals and woodsy settings. Includes interaactive features, making it suitable for the younger generation as well as adults who just enjoy colouring. Some designs are a bit out of place - there's an oriental style dragon on a double page that folds out, the style of black colour blocking seem off from the whimsical-style we see through the rest of the book.
Would I recommend it? Absolutely.
Thank you for reading!
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