Raven & Friends: A Roy Henry Vickers Colouring Book for Kids

Written and illustrated by Roy Henry Vickers

Harbour Publishing

978-1-998526543

60 pp.

Ages 6–8

February 2026 

 

Raven & Friends is more than a colouring book. It's an invitation to learn how to draw in the style of Northwest Coast art. It's an offer to visit the animals of the land, water, and sky that inhabit this area. And it's a promise to help us see more than just ourselves.

From Raven & Friends: A Roy Henry Vickers Colouring Book for Kids, 

written and illustrated by Roy Henry Vickers

While the emphasis is on Raven and other animals like Hummingbird, Sealions, and Salmon, Roy Henry Vickers also takes us to see the sun and a Pacific sunset, and as well as a Raven Dancer and our place in the world. With Raven & Friends, Roy Henry Vickers helps us appreciate his Northwest Coast as he sees it: beautiful, natural, and part of something bigger.

From Raven & Friends: A Roy Henry Vickers Colouring Book for Kids, 

written and illustrated by Roy Henry Vickers

Roy Henry Vickers, with whose art I first became familiar through his First West Coast Book series with Robert "Lucky" Budd, will inspire young readers to colour but to also draw. He instructs them how to make shapes used in Northwest Coast art and allows them to practise before helping them put the shapes together into a stylized animal. But even if they aren't interested in trying their hand at drawing—though that would surprise me—Raven & Friends offers an opportunity for colour creativity and relaxation, even stress reduction. The act of putting paint, marker or crayon, pencil or wax, to paper brings calm. But with Roy Henry Vickers's artwork, that calm is sublime, transporting us to the Northwest Coast, compelling us to see beyond our own worries and intrusive thoughts, and inviting us to be present and mindful of the beauty within Raven & Friends and its subject locale.

From Raven & Friends: A Roy Henry Vickers Colouring Book for Kids, 

written and illustrated by Roy Henry Vickers

Roy Henry Vickers's first colouring book, Inspired (2025), was more complex, appropriate for all ages, young and adult. Raven & Friends may be considered more straightforward, less detailed in line and context, but the beauty in his art is accessible to all. For me, a retired teacher librarian, I see such elegance in Roy Henry Vickers's lines and shapes and how they merge into stunning reflections of his home, his cultures and his ancestry—Haida, Heiltsuk, Tsimshian and European—that I'm tempted to visit the Northwest Coast with my own colours and his art. I hope that whether you're six or sixty, you'll let Roy Henry Vickers guide you to a place of organic charm with his art and your colouring tools.

 

• • • • • • •

 

Check out the First West Coast Book series that Roy Henry Vickers created with Robert "Lucky" Budd.

Hello, Humpback!

One Eagle Soaring

Sockeye Silver, Saltchuck Blue

Raven Squawk, Orca Squeak

A is for Anemone

A Flock of Gulls, A Chorus of Frogs

 

Inspired: A Roy Henry Vickers Colouring Book

 

Art by Roy Henry Vickers

Harbour Publishing

978-1-998526-33-8

88 pp.

All ages

Releases June 17, 2025 

Roy Henry Vickers, an Indigenous artist of rich Tsimshian, Haida, Heiltsuk, and English ancestry, has inspired many a child through his First West Coast Books with Robert "Lucky" Budd, and art lovers with his carvings, paintings, and prints, and even music lovers through his Grammy-nominated artwork for the Grateful Dead's 2018 boxed set. With this new publication, Roy Henry Vickers shares his art with those who may be inspired to create beauty through the colouring process.

From Inspired by Roy Henry Vickers

First, I must apologize for the poor reproductions of the gorgeous pages of Inspired. As line drawings, I could not share them properly to display the beauty of their shapes and line. That is my failing, not that of the book. Once you have your own copy of Inspired, you'll see the true depth of charm and style depicted in each spread. Roy Henry Vickers does not disappoint, though my scanned images do.

From Inspired by Roy Henry Vickers

Inspired is a collection of 42 pages for the reader to colour. The perforated pages are blank on one side, allowing the reader or colourist to remove the pages easily for display. Some of the titles of Roy Henry Vickers's colouring pages, some derived from actual art pieces, include Two Salmon, Bear Claw, Frog Drum, Snowy Owl, and Skeena Northern Lights. They cover a wide variety of Pacific Coast animals, people, and places. How the reader or colourist decides to give embellishment to the art, whether with pencil crayons, markers or watercolour paint, is up to them.

From Inspired by Roy Henry Vickers

Roy Henry Vickers's style is evident in each illustration with flowing lines creating elegant abstractions. His images, even as line drawings, are powerful and magnificent, recreating familiar scenes and natural elements in wonderfully stylized Northwest Coastal art. Roy Henry Vickers, who lives in BC, blends his natural surroundings with his heritage and designs creations that are both unreal and recognizable. They are beautiful.

From Inspired by Roy Henry Vickers

Though I would be tempted to colour these images myself, I think Inspired would be a lovely gift to someone who needs to see beauty and have a hand in gracing it with colour. Roy Henry Vickers's artwork needs no embellishment; it is perfection. But, by creating a colouring book of his images, Roy Henry Vickers allows the reader, nay colourist, to be part of a process by giving them license to impart their own vision onto his outlines. It's a subtle collaboration that empowers and soothes.

• • • • • • • 

To further appreciate the art of Roy Henry Vickers, check out the First West Coast Book series he created with Robert Budd.

Hello, Humpback!

One Eagle Soaring

Sockeye Silver, Saltchuck Blue

Raven Squawk, Orca Squeak

A is for Anemone

A Flock of Gulls, A Chorus of Frogs