Category Archives: Adult Color Books

Johanna Basford is the designer who started my hobby of adult coloring books with her genre defining book, Secret Garden and her equally fantastic follow-up Enchanted Forest. With her newest book, Lost Ocean, she builds upon the stunningly beautiful and extremely intricate designs that I have come to expect from her.

The subject of the coloring book is the ocean. There are so many designs, including: sailing ships, mermaids, fish, sea mammals, jellyfish, and shipwrecks and more flora of the deep than I can count, each page is a wonderful experience in coloring. There seems to be about 80 designs to color which is less than in both of her earlier books. The book is also a hunt for hidden items and there is a key for what you are looking for as well as where they can be found. There is a picture of an octopus that reminds me way too much of Homer Simpson. I may have to color its head yellow with white and blue tentacles.

The one disappointing thing about this book is the paper. It seemed that the artist and publisher had finally understood the need for thicker and/or better paper. Recent versions of Secret Garden had improved paper so much so, that this note is now included at the top of the page in all italics and with caps Good news for all SECRET GARDEN fans! All editions of SECRET GARDEN now feature thicker and heavier paper stock, fighting bleed-through from ink pens. From my point of view, one would think Lost Ocean would have the upgraded paper. It does not. In fact, it does not even have the same publisher. The paper is thinner and is worse and not as good as the last book. Maybe that is because of the change in publisher, but the artist and her staff should have verified what grade of paper was being used. The artwork makes up for this but I really wish an artist of this caliber’s work was presented in the best possible way.

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This is my second book of coloring designs by artist Joy Ting for Peter Pauper Press. There are 31 designs with inspirational messages that that have lots of abstract designs surrounding and inside of the words on the page. The designs range from fairly easy to color to much more complex and a number of them have fairly thick black lines with them. Thirty of the sayings are simply that while one is attributed to Confucius.

The pages are a heavyweight white paper. This is fantastic as my pencils, gel pens, and ultra fine markers (except for alcohol based markers) do not bleed through on this paper. The designs are printed on only one side with the back side left blank, so if you are using regular markers or watercolors, you can put an extra page in between just in case some color leaches through.

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This is my first coloring book by this talented artist, Samarra Khaja. I hope there will be more books in the future as I find the art to be so very different from what is generally available in a quality coloring book. There is a modern and whimsical air to the hand drawn designs. I like so many of them, I am having a little difficulty choosing my first project. I am leaning towards the pigs in what looks like the interior of an airplane (maybe that is a play on “if pigs could fly”).

The pages are a good medium weight white paper. All of my markers (both alcohol and water based) bleed through the page. My gel pens do not but I do see a shadow on the back side of the page. Not a problem, though, as the designs are printed on only one side with the back side left blank. If you are using regular markers or watercolors, you can put an extra page in between just in case some color leaches through.

The pages are perforated and are extremely easy to remove. Some of the designs run over the perforated edge, so you may lose a small part of those designs if you remove the page from the book (as I do.) Additionally, the binding easily lies flat and gives you access to make coloring in this book and easy and fun thing to do.

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This is a set of 30 bird designs that are simply beautiful and intricate to color. It is one of the newer coloring books by Valentina Harper. For some reason, it has a misnomer of activity book on Amazon when it is really a coloring book. This is my first coloring book by Valentina Harper but I will certainly look for more books by her in the future. I have purchased books by this same publishing line (Design Originals) by other artists and this book is the same high quality book.

In addition to the designs, the artist has included information about basic color ideas and basic color tips at the front of the book, along with some great color examples (some of which I will show in my attached photos.) The lessons are generic to the color book line but the samples are specific to the designs in this book.

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This is a wonderful set of coloring designs by Peter Pauper Press. The various designs in this book are based on images licensed from both Bigstock and Shutterstock, so it is possible that you may have seen similar or even the exact images in other books.

There are 31 animal related designs with lots of various animals including fish, birds, and mammals. The designs range from fairly easy to color to much more complex. Many of the designs have intricate components but they don’t look that difficult to color provided you have ultra-fine point pens/markers/pencils. I don’t know that crayons would work that well on those particular designs.

The pages are a wonderful heavyweight of bright white. This is fantastic as my pencils, gel pens, and ultra fine markers (except alcohol-based markers) do not bleed through on this paper. The designs are printed on only one side with the back side left blank, so if you are using alcohol based markers or watercolors, you can put an extra page in between just in case some color leaches through. Be sure to check your particular markers/pens to see if there is any leaking for that brand.

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This is my first coloring book by artist Wendy Piersall though this is her fourth publication. I am so impressed by her artistic design that I will certainly look at her past books, too. All four of her books are based on mandalas. She incorporates a variety of themes into the mandala form. In this book, the theme is the ocean fact and fiction.

The designs in the book are a wide assortment of subjects. From a sailing ship to a mermaid, from whales to Neptune with his trident, and with a wide assortment of fish and other sea creatures and flora, this book has a nice variety of ocean subjects to color and to enjoy. Most of the designs have intricate details that will require that I use a ultra-fine point pen, marker, or pencil.

The mandala format makes this book different from my other ocean coloring book (which is mostly just fish.) While the designs are intricate, they are on the smaller side (as compared to average format coloring books) and will be projects to color when I feel like finishing in fewer days than some of the larger designs take. I like large challenges but some days, I really prefer a smaller design that is pretty and fun to color.

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This is a lovely coloring book by Molly Harrison which includes 25 hand-drawn designs of a variety of subjects. The line drawings are generally complex and somewhat intricate to color. Some of my other designs by Ms. Harrison include both elegant and younger, cute style designs. This book focuses on the elegant and beautiful adult fairy. I have several coloring books by this designer and am enjoying all of them. I look forward to more of her books in the future.

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This is my second coloring book by Cher Kaufmann and I will certainly be back for future books. The smaller format book has many, many designs. While a lot of coloring books are created from computer generated artwork (and I enjoy those, too), this book has 100 hand-drawn designs from the beginning to the end. The designs include many Celtic knots, mandalas, and other sacred symbols based on ancient cultures and traditions.

In addition to the designs, the artist has included information about the history of some symbols. She has also provided an Ancient Alchemy Symbols guide to explain a number of the symbols that she uses in the coloring book. Reading this information has certainly enhanced my appreciation of the artwork and what the artist is trying to convey with each drawing.

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This is a really unusual coloring book as it mimics chalkboard style art. It is printed on a soft black matte background and the words and other drawn elements have the appearance of being written in chalk. While there are no instructions on how the samples were colored, it appears that the white portions of the designs were filled in with color. I am guessing that you will need to use a lighter tone perhaps pastel or neon tones to allow the black underlying part of the chalked areas to show through.

The artist responsible for these designs, CJ Hughes, is a professional chalkboard artist. He works in both chalk artwork and chalk-look art and has had a wide variety of customers, including Microsoft, Wendy’s Hamburgers, ESPN, and Rachel Ray Magazine among many others.

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This is a lovely set of 30 fun and different Christmas tree designs which span the gamut from traditional to rather avant garde. Some of the designs are intricate and others are open and easy to color. What is really nice is that all 30 designs have been hand-drawn. These are not the standard computer generated designs that are in such abundance. Personally, I like both styles, so I am always open to trying something new.

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