Video Review: Inkspirations Mindful Living

 

When was the last time you took a few minutes just to sit and breathe?

With every new advance in technology, our world becomes more distracting, more demanding of our attention. All of those inputs are exhausting.

Living mindfully is one way we can fight back against the all-consuming hustle and bustle, and make time for our real priorities, passions, and dreams.

You probably know where this is going… taking a moment to stop and carefully fill a page with color is a great way to practice mindful living. Coloring disconnects you from technology, and it is a combination of mindless enough to be relaxing and focused enough to keep your mind from wandering too far through a day’s worries.

The coloring book I am going to share with you today is an especially good choice, because it is themed entirely around mindful living. Inkspirations: Mindful Living is a great choice if you want to use coloring to pursue a more intentional start to your year.

I am also excited (and, I will admit, a little bit nervous) to share my very first video review and flipthrough with you all today. If you like the video review and want to see more of them (or have any suggestions!), please let me know in the comments! And while you’re at it, feel free to subscribe to my new YouTube channel!

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with a free copy of Inkspirations: Mindful Living to review! This page contains several affiliate links, which means that if you love this book and decide to head over to Amazon and purchase it through my links, I will make a small commission off the sale at no extra cost to you. Thank you so much for supporting Cleverpedia by buying your next coloring book through my blog!

Here’s the video review!

How are you embracing mindfulness in the New Year?

It’s a brand new year. How are you embracing mindfulness this year? It is so easy to get swept up in work, appointments, and errands that it can be easy to lose sight of what really matters in your life. Are you resolving to follow any new rejuvenating habits this year? Are you setting aside time to relax and pursue your interests and passions?

I know the image above looks like a completely random assortment of items, but these are actually some of the ways I am planning to pursue a more mindful life this year.

Inkspirations: Mindful Living is in there of course. Behind it is my set of Caran D’Ache Pablos, because I want to do more coloring in pencil this year. Also behind it is my Uncalendar, which isn’t much to look at, but it is how I have been keeping track of my goals and plans this year. Above the planner is a Nanoblock Eiffel Tower, both because I’d like to keep working on my collection of these little architectural building sets, and because I want to keep using my French.

Next to the Nanoblock is a set of watercolors, because I want to learn how to color with watercolors and how to paint with them in general this year. Below that is my galaxy-colored Nintendo 3DS, a reminder to myself to take some time to relax and play games now and then. Below that is my Kindle, because I am always reading, with a Copic pen on top that I would like to work on my technique with. Below that is my Fitbit. That crazy colorful box is actually a Warby Parker gift card that my aunt got for me for Christmas, so I can get a nice new pair of glasses. And finally, some tea, which I always want to keep drinking for health and because I enjoy it!

Now, I know there are a lot of things here — and I’m not going to beat myself up if I don’t pay equal attention to all of these interests this year, or even if I don’t get to something I wanted to get to. But I think it is important to keep the passions you want to pursue in mind, and it was just fun to gather all these items together.

If you gathered together a photo like mine, what would you include in yours?

A Look Inside Inkspirations Mindful Living

On to the review! For this review, I’ll be taking a look at Inkspirations: Mindful Living, published in partnership with AARP and featuring beautiful artwork by Judy Clement Wall.

The book is softcover and has a super glossy finish to the cover. It looks great next to all my other Inkspirations coloring books! As you can see in the flipthrough in my video above, the first few pages are printed in full color. This introduction is full of tips for achieving mindfulness while coloring, suggestions for how to choose colors, and a dozen full-color examples of finished pages. Then it’s on to the coloring pages!

Like other Inkspirations coloring books, Mindful Living has nice thick pages that are nice and smooth, perfect for blending if you choose to color with pencils, or great for laying down marker. The pages are perforated, which is a feature I always look for in coloring books since I prefer to color on a clipboard so I can turn the page around as I work. The perforation is very close to the binding, so to ensure that you get a clean tear, you’ll want to make sure to “fold” the perforation down on each side first.

There are 32 pages to color, with the main design printed on just one side of the page.

Here are a few sample pages from the book:

I always love Judy Clement Wall’s style of artwork, which is whimsical and flowery with strong dark lines. Here are a few of my favorite page spreads from the book!

I love how the design is matched nicely on the opposite page, creating a better sense of unity throughout the coloring book. You don’t have to color this side, but you can, so you have a lot of options! There is also an inspiring quote on every page.

Here’s the first page I’ve colored so far:

What can I say? I always love coloring Judy Clement Wall’s artwork, and this was no exception! This page jumped out at me when I first flipped through the book, and I knew it would have to be the first page I colored! There’s just something really appealing about those loops and swirls, and it can be fun to color a design with text incorporated into it.

Even though this page had some obvious leaves in the design, I opted for a slightly offbeat color palette. Limiting your color palette is a great way to create unity in a design, and I definitely wanted to pull all the different elements of this design together. I ended up pulling five colors out of my set of Tombow dual-ended brush markers, and I also added some extra flourishes with my gold Signo Uni-ball gel pen!

I actually just got this gel pen for Christmas (a gift to myself, haha) and this was my first time using it. I am already in love with these gel pens — they just roll on so smoothly, with no interruptions in the flow of the ink, and the ink is so opaque! It’s practically like coloring with a paint pen! The gold gel pen is available in a three pack with an equally gorgeous metallic silver pen and an opaque white pen that is great for adding highlights over top of your designs.

Here are the markers and the gel pen I used:

I often turn to Pinterest for color palette inspiration, and this was no exception! I’ve been on a huge Rifle Paper Company kick lately, and have been pinning tons of their wrapping paper designs to my patterns Pinterest board. I went back through them, and landed on this lovely pin:

This design ultimately inspired my choice of markers. Then, I got the idea for the gold gel pen additions from the gold foiling on this lovely set of birthday cards (available individually from Paper Source) — I love how the gold fans out further down her tail!

All in all, this page took me about two hours to color and add the gold flourishes. And what a relaxing two hours it was! I had a blast coloring this in, and there are so many other pages I have my eye on.

Okay, I’m sold… how do I get a copy?!

If the sample pages and the colored page I shared above look appealing to you, I definitely encourage you to pick up a copy on Amazon! The book is priced at just $10.95, coming out at just 34 cents per page — a bargain when you consider the quality of the paper, the perforations, and the quality of the artwork!

Don’t forget to share your colored pages! You can tag your photos with the #inkspirationscoloring hashtag on Instagram and Twitter to connect with the Inkspirations community.

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