Category Archives: Adult Color Books

This is a book of 47 designs which are of famous places and buildings, etc. from around the world. I liked the concept and the paper used but what I found to be an issue (for me) was that the details of many of the designs was really tiny making it difficult for me to see or to use a color medium that worked well.

If that is not a problem for you, then you may very well love this book. For me, it makes a portion of the book either usable or something I have to color in less detail than I would ordinarily prefer.

It’s really nice to have an explanation of which city et al the design is of and some of the history behind it. Unfortunately, that information is printed on the preceding page, i.e., the back of the design in front of it. If I take the pages out, I lose continuity of the information with the design. That makes the perforated pages a little less meaningful for me.

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“World of Flowers” is yet another beautiful coloring book by Johanna Basford. With flowers as a theme, I found that there appears to be much less use of green (or as I like to call it, 50 shades of green because it could get painful coloring that much green and using all of my green pencils up on one coloring book.) There is a page or two with lots of fuchsias which are one of my favorite flowers to grow.

Even though this book has less design pages, I like it better than “Magical Jungle”. That’s a personal choice because I like flowers more so than cartoon jungle animals.

As usually, there are some designs with a large amount of detail and others with very little on the page. The ones that are mostly empty are great for individuals who like to add their own unique touch and designs in their coloring.

Again, there are areas which have small and intricate areas to color. That is par for the course with Ms. Basford. I would be surprised if it weren’t so.

As with her most recent coloring books, there appears to have been a concentrated effort to reduce the elements which span across the binding if the page is one of the few two-page spread designs. In my book, the pages line up well.

The paper is the same color as in “Magical Jungle” which is an ivory but it is different from my older coloring book by Ms. Basford (which is more of a cream color.) Once again, as with “Magical Jungle”, seems to me that the paper has a smooth side and a slightly rough side and that it alternates in my book. The paper is heavyweight in nature.

The cover is attached and has light pink foil highlights. The inside of the front and back covers have French folds (partial fold-outs.) There are color palette test pages at the back for testing your medium to see what seeps through or not.

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This is an interesting Halloween coloring book. It is portrayed as a book appropriate for kids but because of the “creepy” factor of what many of the cute elements actually are in the illustrations, I would caution you not to give it to younger kids. See for yourself and make your own judgement for the kids in your life.

The designs are done in a cute style and I will enjoy coloring it. I originally bought it thinking my five year old grandson could color in some but after actually seeing it, that won’t do. Good thing I like it for myself!

The little creatures remind me of doodle creatures and as I enjoy coloring those, these are fun for me. There are groupings which include vampires, witches, ghosts, skeletons, zombies, monsters, death, gravestones, and much more. Sounds fun, right?

The designs are detailed but not overly so. There are no framing lines at the edges but the design elements are all finished within the page.

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I have another coloring book by this artist and another one on the way. I enjoy coloring manga characters and Christopher Hart is one of the better artists with respect to this type of characters in coloring books.

These are designs of girls and can range from a headshot to a full body pose. The designs all have backgrounds (mostly in a wall paper style.)

The backgrounds are there only as a backdrop to the girl, so the repeating patterns there don’t bother me. I can either choose to make them fade away using monochrome colors or bring them to life with bright and contrasting colorings.

The girls are the “thing” in this book and they are really well done. My husband likes to color this style of book as well, so either a tug-of-war ensues or we each buy our own book. This is one where we had to get two.

The designs are detailed because of those backgrounds. Otherwise, the girls are fun and fairly easy to color. I hope Mr. Hart continues to bring his artwork to coloring books in the future. I now he has a Christmas Chibi book that is winging its way to me as I write this. Look for that review soon!

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This is my third coloring book by Janelle Dimmett. The other two were published by Pomegranate and were of a higher quality of paper. This book is published by Kindle Direct Publishing (Amazon’s in-house publishing group.)

While the paper is night and day different from each other, the designs are still the same quality from this artist. There are lots of flowers and butterflies, some birds, landscapes, etc.

The only complaint that I have is that some of the pictures seemed to have been scaled wrong for the page. In one, both edges of a bouquet of flowers are cut off just before their edge. The image would have had to been smaller to fit on the page but I would have preferred it that way.

This book has Janelle Dimmett listed as illustrated and has Francis Keene co-listed. I’m not sure what Ms. Keene’s part in the book is, perhaps as a small publisher who handled the transfer? Other of Ms. Dimmett’s independent coloring books do not list Ms. Keene.

The designs are detailed and some have intricate and small areas to color. A good number of the designs continue to and are cut off at the page ends. For me, at least, that makes it a little more difficult to color as I can’t get the same pressure on the edges that I get elsewhere on the page.

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This is a black and white version of comic book pages. It is printed on both sides of the page. There is a heavy use of black, so if I color with a lighter pencil, I have to be sure to either not color over it or color over it all.

It’s fun to be able to choose between coloring the characters as envisioned by DC Comics or to go my own way. I generally go for the latter as I like to have fun with my projects. I can choose to put Batman in purple, or Wonderwoman in pastels. It becomes my own vision at that point.

The designs include detailed areas and some are a bit intricate. I will be using color pencils as it is the only way to ensure that color from the front of the page doesn’t mar the back of the page.

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This is a cute forest inspired coloring book. It is the first Color & Frame book I have purchased, to I didn’t realize that many of their books (including this one) are part of three in one sets. The price of those books are double what I paid, so effectively, you can buy two and get three but it is their choice not yours. I am happy with what I bought but you may want to check for yourself.

The book is filled with animals and flowers and other plant life. The designs range from easy to mildly detailed. While there is a touch of zentangle in some of the designs, for the most part, the animals are presented more realistically than with lots of little designs on their hides, feathers, etc.

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This is a new Nutcracker coloring book by Marty Noble. Most of her coloring books recently have been filled with designs which are intricate and difficult to color. This book has small areas but not nearly as small as other books. It is still intricate in spots but otherwise it is simply detailed.

The designs are lovely and are geared toward the ballet. It is definitely a rendition for adults and is quite elegant. The characters I would hope to find in a book based on The Nutcracker are present. This should be a great book to color in throughout the year and not only at Christmas time.

Depending on when and where it was printed, Creative Haven paper is either slightly rough or slightly smooth. My copy of this book has slightly rough paper.

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This is a grayscale version of Jade Summer’s Chibi Girls coloring book. While I liked the line drawing version, I find this grayscale even more. It’s not heavily shaded – just a light and medium gray. I won’t have to work quite as hard in better the dark colors to show.

As this is KDP paper, be aware that it sometimes smears when blending (if you use a pencil style blending stick.) I’m choosing not to blend with other than another pencil (lighter in tone) but if I could, I would probably use a liquid style blender with my coloring pencils.

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I first came across Denyse Klette’s artwork in her funny and quirky quilt fabrics and panels. I enjoyed her artwork so much, I have purchased all three of her coloring books.

This is the first of the three that has a disappointing issue for me. Otherwise, the book is just as fun and wacky and cute as the two previous ones. The problem I have is the nose on the female gnomes. From the side, they are fine but full face-on, they resemble duck bills.

I’ve looked carefully and found that it is because their noses are portrayed quite large. Much larger than the males both in proportion to their faces and in actual size. The noses on the male gnomes are just fine.

I’m hoping that as I color, I can diminish the look of the duck face. Perhaps using the same color without any shading can lessen it. Too bad the artist didn’t give some consideration to this slight issue. I did notice that the cover image of the book only includes male gnomes so there was no way to see this before purchasing the book.

I still like the rest of the book and will enjoy coloring in it. It just won’t be one of my favorites and there will probably be pages I will pass on.

The designs are detailed and some are quite intricate with lots of tiny details to color. To color some of the tiny detail, I will need to use extra fine nib pens or extremely sharp pointed pencils. For most of the designs, my regular coloring medium will work well.

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