I am so excited to finally be able to share my new Succulent Serenity Collection for Sizzix. This collection consists of craft dies, clear stamps, a coordinating paper pad and a coloring book. These will be available in stores in June 2017.

I will share the many elements of this collection over the next few weeks but I decided to start with the coloring book.

My inspiration for my coloring book was that I didn’t want it to be just “another coloring book”. I thought about how I would want to use the images after I spent so much time carefully coloring in the illustrations. I decided that I would want the images to be beautiful enough to inspire pages in an art journal.

Using my Copic markers, I started coloring the illustration of the Saguaro cactus flowers. I still have a lot to do but I wanted to show it in progress. I made myself a cup of tea, relaxed and began coloring.

Here are some images of a few of the other pages.

This is an agave called Agave victoriae-reginae or the Queen Victoria Agave. It has always been my favorite succulent to draw ever since I discovered them in a college drawing class assignment. In this illustration, I added the Queen Victoria stamps in respect to my love of English royal history. The horizontal design element represents washi tape plus I collect vintage rulers so I added them as more design elements.

I love old maps. I live in an urbanized desert so I wanted to add a drawing to promote exploring wherever you might reside. {Note: the map is actually based on a real city and the compass rose is correctly drawn to indicate North on the map.}

I wanted to do an image looking straight down on a collection of succulents. I included a vintage camera and a cup of coffee for people who enjoy a good cup of coffee or love photography.

This image was inspired by my father’s old Remington No. 5 typewriter. I also drew the typewriter to inspire writers who keep art journals since words can also create beautiful imagery.

These are just some of the images in my Succulent Art Journal coloring book. I hope you enjoy my stories of the inspiration behind these images and I hope you feel inspired to add them to your art journal or to just enjoy them as you relax and color.