Recently Dutch publisher BBNC / MUS came out with another new mandala coloring book, called Mystieke Mandala’s or translated in English Mystical mandalas. My first thought was ‘how many mandala coloring books can one have?’ I think I’ve got all of the BBNC mandala coloring books, and there have been quite a few!
Another thought that came up was ‘by now every mandala coloring book looks like the previous one, so why bother buying another one???’ But as a true collector and mandala lover, I felt that after buying all previous ones, I couldn’t miss out on this one. And when it arrived, I was really surprised, because it definitely is a different book!
Flip-through video
Let me show you in the flip-through video I’ve made, so you can see yourself how mystical the drawings are. This book had me nearly jumping up and down for joy, because the drawings are significantly different, compared to BBNC’s other mandala books!
Mystical Mandala coloring book
Like the previous books, this one contains 46 drawings again and it measures about 12″x12″ (30×30 cm). The paper is white and pretty thick (I assume it’s 200gsm). This makes it suitable for many kinds of coloring materials, as you will see in the examples that I’ve colored.
All pages are printed single sided and because of the size of the book you’ve got plenty of room to add your own creativity to the drawings. But in itself the drawings are already beautiful, mystical and even esoteric.
Mystical peacock is watching
Because there are so many beautiful and diverse drawings in this book, it was hard to pick one to start with. All I knew was that it had to be something different than the usual mandala. So I chose one that looked a bit like a kaleidoscope. I just love kaleidoscopes, always have.
For this drawing I used the Faber-Castell Black Edition pencils. And they did really well. They smoothly glided over the paper, like skaters on ice. To give it a bit of a spiritual feel, the first color I picked was a violet one. And in addition to that, for the peacock feathers, I picked a turquoise and two similar blue/greenish ones.
I colored all the feathers and the ‘eyes’ and then I had to decide what to do with the center. I picked a few different colors, two flesh and a dark red-pink one. And in the center I let the first colors of the outer part of the drawing return. That way it all matched together perfectly.
Shiny Orient
For the next drawing I chose one with moons, stars and flames. Immediately I knew I wanted to use yellow, orange and red, because they’re associated with fire and flames. I started coloring the moons yellow with a Stabilo Pen 68 Brush, and then I took a glitter gel pen for the stars. And I kept going with the glitter all over the drawing, until my pen was empty! I just happen to love glitters, shimmers and shine.
Then I used blue around the moons and stars, to give it a bit of a night time look. By that time I started the camera, to film the coloring of this mandala. (This footage is included in the ‘Tabby Reads’ video for this post!)
I finished this page with a red Stabilo Point 88 fineliner, because I didn’t wanna mess up the shiny dots with a tip that’s too big. This worked perfectly.
Keep an eye out for this one
The drawings in this book are so very inviting to color, that I didn’t want to stop yet. I had to do another one, but I also wanted to do something very unusual for me. Instead of using pens, markers or pencils, I thought it would be a great idea to color a page with watercolor paint. But, as you may know by now, I really love bright colors.
Bright colors combined with watercolor to me could only mean one thing: Studio Light Art by Marlene watercolor! I took Marlene’s ‘Bold & Bright’ and ‘Whimsey & Bright’ watercolor sets and started coloring with a regular brush.
Because I didn’t use green for the two previous drawings, I took a page which had leaves to color. Somehow I wanted green in this third drawing. And all the eyes staring at me, well it was strange and nice at the same time. And definitely mystical, referencing the all-seeing eye!
The paper handled the water perfectly. Even much better than I expected. It barely shows that I’ve used water! So that was another surprise. And I wasn’t exactly careful with the amount of water I used. At some points I painted really wet, but it was never a problem.
Getting even more mystical
When everything was colored, I felt the need to add some lines and dots. For that I used a few Posca pens and I kept doodling till I felt it was enough. But still… I felt this drawing needed a background. Hm… So I took a foam stamp and some distress ink, and after that a Studio Light clear stamp of a spiderweb and a spider, and another color Distress ink, and I filled the background with it.
Now I was satisfied and when I look at this drawing, it makes me really happy. It has this mystical feel, combined with a sense of autumn, thanks to the spiderwebs.
To me it’s even a hint towards the upcoming celebration of Samhain on October 31st (or for a lot of you Halloween, which is a derivative of Samhain), when the veil between our physical world and the spiritual world (or ‘the other side’), is at its thinnest. The eyes can be a symbol of our ancestors watching us through the veil, and guiding and helping us.
Ah well, that’s just a thought I had while watching the drawing and letting it sink in.
Conclusion
After so many mandala coloring books, is this book worth the money? Obviously I can’t decide that for you, but for me the answer is an absolute YES! The moment I opened the package when it arrived, I was impressed. The layout of the cover with the blue shiny foil and the very different drawings, compared to their older books, really took me by surprise.
I have been critical about BBNC a couple of years ago (causing me being blocked on their Facebook page, up to this date), but recently their coloring books have become absolute must haves to me. This also keeps people coloring, which still is a wonderful hobby and even a therapeutic way to silence your thoughts and get relaxation in these strange times we’re living in.
So, a well deserved compliment and thank you to BBNC for regularly providing us with beautiful new books like this mystical mandalas book.
If you want to get your hands on this book yourself, you’d best check out Amazon. I know it’s available on all European Amazon’s, maybe they also send it to the US, I don’t know.
And that brings us to the end of this review. If you liked it, please share using the buttons below. Thank you!
Greetz,
Disclosure: I’ve purchased this coloring book myself and I’m not affiliated with BBNC/MUS. Also note my Disclosure Promos page!
