ME TIME coloring book review: first-time coloring book by Leska Hamaty
Artist Leska Hamaty was kind enough to send me her book, Me Time: 50 Stress Relieving Mandala Motifs, for this coloring book review. Leska is a surface and pattern designer who designs for the textiles and paper markets. Me Time is her first coloring book.
The art in the book is mandalas she created herself in Adobe Illustrator. They range from complex, with tiny detailed areas, to less complicated if you feel like working larger. She has also provided decorative shapes and details and mandala pattern at the end of the book to help you create your own mandala.
Click to see this book on Amazon
(Link will take you to the store of the country you are in.)
The first thing I noticed about the Me Time adult coloring book is the inviting cover. It shows a meditating woman in front of a mandala against a black background, capturing the idea of inward contemplation. This is the only figurative image; the interior illustrations are all mandalas.
In this video Leska shares a page in the book as she colors it.
She self-published the book of 50 mandalas on Amazon CreateSpace. I wondered how well various art supplies would hold on the paper, so I tried watercolors, aquarelles, colored pencils, markers, and crayons on it, including layering.
Leska wisely left the backside of each art page blank to prevent bleedthrough. It is quite possible to use watercolors on it, but I recommend adding a piece of paper, as water can on occasion soak through a little. I didn’t find that to happen when using water markers; I haven’t tried solvent-based ones but those tend to bleed through more. Some of the marker colors seemed to stick to the paper a little. Crayons and pencils are fine.
The artist in her adult coloring book debut, shows an hand at creating mandalas via vector art. I like how sometimes the symmetry was intentionally not totally exact, as that makes the design more interesting.
She explains that she made the book almost spontaneously during a difficult time when she was questioning much about her life. She found creating mandalas to be healing and necessary.
Rather than pre-plan every detail, she let her creativity flow to see what she came up with. The result is beautiful patterns that inspire one to become utterly absorbed in coloring them.
She chose the title to remind wives and mothers who give so much of themselves that they need to care for themselves as well as others. Leska says, “I hope deeply that these mandalas can extend the energy in which they were created, to clear the mind and let peoples heart sing despite whatever life offers at the time.”
Me Time is an engaging and relaxing way to de-stress and offers enough variations and patterns to keep you coloring for many hours.
You can find Leska on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LeskaHamatyArtwork/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leskahamaty/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/lovinggraphics/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LeskaHamaty
end of Coloring book review: Me Time
See our post on mandala meaning
Victoria, Thank you for reviewing my book! I so hope you enjoyed coloring it, may it bring you calm healing 🙂