Beth Logan's whimsical art adorns home and garden products from coast to coast—now her signature style springs to life on the pages of this coloring book in a celebration of flora and fauna in our natural world. Inkspirations in the Garden features gardens in all their glory, from delightful cottage gardens to well-manicured backyards and gazebos, from vibrant wildflowers to well-pruned rose bushes—including cute garden visitors we've come to know and love. Filled with inspiring word art, and a mix of easier designs along with more elaborate pages, there is truly something for everyone. So grab your colored pencils or markers and bring each page into full bloom!

I like gardening—it's a place where I find myself when I need to lose myself.
—Alice Sebold

Gardening and coloring have a lot in common. Both hobbies can transform a blank slate into a wonder of color, patterns, and textures. Both offer a way lose yourself doing something you enjoy. They relax you and enliven you at the same time by allowing you to create something with your own hands.

Whether your preferred tool is a spade or a Sharpie, fragrant flowers or fragrant markers, making time for yourself is important. Leaving the demands of the day behind to spend time in nature or to create something is restorative to the soul.

This book celebrates nature's gardens and the many ways in which they brighten our worlds. Even if you don't have the greenest of thumbs, you can still enjoy nature's bounty of color every day. So, relax, unwind, and let your inner artist bloom.

Tips to Make Your Pages Come to Life

Coloring is meant to be a stress-free, no-worries activity. There really is no right or wrong way to do it. But for anyone who wants to take it to another level, here are some tips:

Stippling—Stippling is a good way to add texture to your art. Stippling means to place many tiny dots on the surface. Your dots can be close together or far apart, depending upon the effect you are trying to create (you can stipple trees, water, flowers, or the sky—anything really!).

Hatching—Hatching is when you draw a series of parallel lines in the same direction.

Cross-hatching—As the name implies, cross-hatching means that you draw a series of parallel lines and then you make another set of parallel lines in another direction on top of the first set of lines. This creates both shading and texture.

Basic shading—Use two similar colors to create a dimensional shading effect. Choose one lighter color and one darker color, both in the same color family. Leave the darker area with one color and then blend the colors together to create the lighter shade. Blending the strokes together will add depth and dimension.

Blending Colors—By blending several colors together, you can create a three-dimensional shading effect. For example, if you want to color a leaf green, use the color wheel on the next page to choose several shades of green as well as some colors next to the green (yellows and blues). Try to envision where the light would be falling on your image. Wherever the light would fall on the leaf is where you will place your lightest colors (the lighter greens and yellow). Wherever the shadow would fall is where you would place your darker colors (the darker green and a bit of blue). By overlapping the colors and blending them, you will create a realistic effect. It helps to practice on a piece of scrap paper first, and to work slowly to see if you are creating the effect you wish before you complete a large area.

©2016 HCI Books. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Inkspirations in the Garden: Fabulous Floral Coloring Designs Celebrating Life in Full Bloom. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher. Publisher: Health Communications, Inc., 3201 SW 15th Street, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442.