Review: Sybile Art's Coloring Book Vol 2 (Grayscale)
This week we review Sybile Arts’ Coloring Book Vol. 2 (Grayscale Version). Sybile is an illustrator from Belgium whose art is inspired by dolls and pop art. I absolutely love the ethereal creatures she creates! They remind me of the big-eyed paintings from the 60’s drawn with a Tim Burton flair. Completely original and totally adorable!!
Sybile has three different books (volumes) available on Etsy as digital downloads as well as physical books.
She also gives the option of greyscale or plain line art. You can purchase whole books or single pages. I bought this book because I’ve never tried grayscale and I’ve been wanting to try. These looked like easy designs to test the waters with! She has many other items for sale, so watch your wallet… it’s easy to want to buy everything! I ended up also buying this beautiful calendar and she included stickers with my order.
These coloring pages did not disappoint. There are 20 feminine illustrations, each of cute girls in different scenes… some with flowers, others with cute creatures like unicorns, bunnies, poodles and foxes. They’re all adorable and easy to color.
Tracey Rawlinson, a member of the Adult Coloring Facebook Group, colored these three images. She printed these pages on different colors of Viking 160GSM paper and used Copic ciao pens, Lyra pencils, Posca pencils, gold and white gelly roll pens, Black widow pencils, and Koh-I-noor pencils. Tracy said, “This was so beautiful to colour. I found the shadows and shading really lovely to colour, they are in the right place to add definition to the picture and easy to follow. I love this about Sybile art pictures. I found the butterflies (on the second pic) challenging as they were quite grey and had no particular shape to them.”
Tracy has been coloring for about 12 months but has more recently (in the past 6-8 months) become more interested in trying out different mediums and techniques. She prefers grayscale to line art, so it’s no wonder she enjoyed these pages so much. She added, “This was so easy and joyful to colour. This felt really feminine and pretty and I had no challenges with this picture (the 3rd pic). It was a really pleasant and relaxing colouring session.”
I love the way Carolyn Arbanas, from the Adult Coloring Facebook Group colored these two pages with her unique bright style. “I used Watercolors; Cosmic Glimmer Luna Paste in Moonlight Sky; White Acrylic Paint and Glitter Pens. To apply the paste I took an old silicone spatula and cut it into various sizes to make applying the paste easy.” Carolyn has been coloring for two years, with no previous training or experience. She loves using mixed media and coloring a wide variety of subjects from whimsical to totally realistic. When asked about these pages, Carolyn said, “I love how I can express my creativity with Sybile’s Art. These drawings look great whether or not you add extra embellishments. For this picture, I used alcohol markers, soft, chalk pastels, glitter markers and pens, and fluorescent acrylic powder, which is just nail powder that I apply like soft pastels to the background for extra vibrancy.”
I was i the holiday mood and decided to color this image. I used Posca paint markers, Arteza gel pens, and Copic markers and then added the pink background digitally. As I said earlier, this is my first foray into grayscale coloring. I found it a little difficult where areas were already colored in black, like the dress. To get coverage over areas like that I had to use paint markers. I found the grey a little heavy in areas too but I blame that more on my printer. I’m used to using pencils which weren’t ideal for these images but all in all, I found it quite a pleasure to color.
I like that she leaves plenty of room if you want to create your own backgrounds. I also love how versatile these illustrations are. This image is one of the same ones that Carolyn colored – you can see how wildly different you can make each image and put your own stamp on Sybile’s art. I can’t wait to get to color more from this volume. I think if I order more, I may get the line art.
* Colorists who participated in this review were given free pages in exchange for their honest opinion and may have received a nominal token from AdultColoring.net for their completed colored pages.
Download Sample Page!
Sybile has been generous enough to share this page to download to our members and visitors free of charge!
About the Artist: Sybile
I am a multi-technics Artist living in Belgium. On finishing Art school I started my journey being a children’s book illustrator. I illustrated many books with French publishers and at the same time I started to paint. I like exploring different mediums: acrylic, gouache, watercolors, alcohol marker and also 3D modeling. I’m a big Art material addict! Creating characters is what I love the most. I’m inspired by dolls, pop culture and anime amongst other things.
Find me here: https://www.patreon.com/sybileart and https://www.etsy.com/shop/Sybile