Colouring with a big difference! The Cut And Colour Playbook: Seasons by Anouk Boisrobert

The Cut And Colour Playbook: Seasons by Anouk Boisrobert is a completely different style of book to most children's colouring books. Beautifully illustrated and very cleverly designed, it not only challenges your child's precision with a pencil, but it will also help increase their cutting skills. The works of art they end up with will be very different to regular 'flat' pictures, with a real 3D feel.

The pages of the book form layers, which are cut so that part of each page is visible in the end product. Seasons is rather obviously split into 4 sections, and Winter is the first, plus very topical, so we started with that.

You are shown an example, and then talked through the making of your image. An absolute beginner can follow the simple instructions as they're regular, well spaced and very clear. There are lots of hints and tips, and the wording is all written on sections of the paper which will be cut away and discarded so your picture is not spoilt.

We decided to create the first picture together as a joint effort between myself, and my 5 1/2 and 7 year old boys. We discussed whether to use pens or crayons, which would be best for fine detail or large areas of colour? How should we distinguish between ice and snow?

My boys are by no means the world's best colourers, and possibly due to being colour-blind have rarely found fun in colouring books, so it's lovely to introduce them to something they could be so enthusiastic about.

My children couldn't understand at first how the book was going to work, but as you start to build up the layers it becomes obvious. Recommended for children aged 6+, the cutting is very challenging in places, but even if something tears or you stray from a marked line, it is never a big issue.

 

The end result is an incredibly impressive and beautiful 3D picture, which can be stapled to hold it together and removed from the book entirely for display. The paper is strong, but not excessively thick, so the design can also be framed if you wish...

We have of course still got 3 more Seasons to create, this was only 1/4 of our 96 page paperback book. This makes the £9.99 price tag very reasonable indeed.

Great fun, excellent for building on skills needed for school, and with a gorgeous end product that you can realistically frame and keep, we love this book. It's very different, and beautifully executed.

The Cut And Colour Playbook: Seasons by Anouk Boisrobert is published by Ivy Press and available to buy from February from all all good bookshops and online retailers, such as Wordery - where it is currently available at a special offer price.

We were sent our copy of the Cut And Colour Playbook: Seasons for review.