Lost Ocean by Johanna Basford
Scottish illustrator, Johanna Basford, led the recent explosion of adult coloring books with Secret Garden (2013), a collection of pen-and-ink illustrations based upon castle gardens and specifically upon her childhood visits to the Isle of Arran where her grandfather was the head gardener at Brodick Castle. Secret Garden was a huge success, and Basford followed with another book, Enchanted Forest, earlier this year.
Lost Ocean is her third inky coloring book, and it’s as beautiful as the first two. But then, I fell in love with Basford’s monochromatic, hand-drawn, pattern-based illustrations years before she started doing coloring books for adults. And I’m far from alone. Friends kept advising her that she needed to work in color, while clients like the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Tate Modern, Starbucks, and Absolut Vodka kept hiring her for what she does – wonderfully intricate black and white pen and ink drawings.
Lost Ocean: An Inky Adventure and Coloring Book is, as you might imagine, a pirate’s treasure trove of under-the-sea pattern work just waiting to be assaulted with colors of your choosing.
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