Velveteen Bubble
Custom hand illustrated coloring pages crafted with velvet and a gold foil stamped cover.
Velvet on coloring pages creates a unique sensory experience through its tactile properties.
A black velvet background was intentionally chosen so that each image could becoms a work of art when colored in or left as a blank canvas.
By setting up each image to be framed as masterpieces, it instill confidence in children or art enthusiasts and encourage participation in artistic activities.
Why Velvet?
Benefits of coloring are scientifically proven to “improve cognitive and sensorimotor functions, foster self-esteem and self-awareness, cultivate emotional resilience, promote insight, enhance social skills, reduce and resolve conflicts and distress, and advance societal and ecological change” according to the American Art Therapy Association.
Every individual is capable of being an artist regardless of age, motor or learning disabilities. Velveteen Bubble facilitates an art therapy experience where everyone can be proud of their artwork.
The value of coloring
After printing the book and adhering the velvet layers to each coloring page, I worked with D&B Book Binders to create a custom cover. The owner Anthony uses metal dies to stamp patterns and turned vectors that I had created into metal plates to gold foil stamp the details into the cover.
Manufacturing the book
Each animal was originally drawn by hand, then digitized into a vector form where it could be laser cut into the velvet. Carefully backing the velvet onto sturdy heavy weight paper, the negative space reveals the animal. A custom illustrated page for each animal was drawn to reflect their ecological habitat accompanied by a fun fact.
30 Hand Drawn Animals
Users like how the velvet is soothing to touch. With velveteen bubble pages, when kids color over the negative space and on the velvet, mistakes do not show up unlike in normal coloring pages with coloring outside the lines.
I interviewed parents, teachers and behavior therapists about the impact of coloring for elementary aged children. 50 individuals tested the coloring pages.
User Testing
