Daily Archives: November 5, 2015

This is a really beautiful adult coloring book of 38 birds designs (including the title page.) I will list the types of birds included at the bottom of this review for anyone interested in reviewing the whole list. The bird designs are really beautifully drawn. I have never seen artist Georgie Woolridge’s work before but I am very impressed. She provides some background information in the first few pages of the book which were very interesting to read. The designs include a great level of detail some of it intricate but not so much so that it will be difficult to color. I love that the artist has woven flower elements into some of the birds to make it more fun for me to color. I did some exploring and discovered she has artwork for other animals, so I am hopeful that we will see some future coloring books with more of these lovely designs.

The book is beautifully made. The cover is gorgeous with a deep blue and purple aurora borealis type foil accented bird on the front and with two colored birds on the interior front and back flaps. While the cover folds out, the publisher lost an opportunity to provide extra coloring as they used a simple orange tone on the interior rather than designs to color. I believe that this is the first adult coloring book that I have which was published by St. Martin’s Griffin. I hope that they publish more in the future with the same quality as this one.

The designs are printed on a good heavyweight white paper that is not perforated. The actual larger design for coloring is printed on the front side of each page. On the opposite side (behind the prior page) is a listing of information about the bird you are coloring which might background, size, coloring, etc. along with a small line drawing of the birds which you can also color if you wish. The binding is sewn rather than glued, which is a sign of a quality book. You can remove all the pages from the book if you wish by snipping those threads every few pages as they appear.

The only marker that did not bleed through to some extent were my Tombow dual brush. I used the brush side (rather than the marker point) and I think that the lack of a hard tip is what made the difference for these. Otherwise, all my water and alcohol-based markers did bleed through (even Staedler fineliner triplus.) None of my gel pens had problems and my coloring pencils went on thick and creamy. If I want to use all of my markers, I will only be sacrificing parts of the information page (as mentioned above) so that is not an issue for me. The information will still be visible and I can always color those small info pictures with coloring pencils should I choose to do so. I would suggest putting a heavy piece of paper or chipboard under the page you are working on so marker ink does not seep further into the book.

This book is physically perfect for me as a colorist. The only real improvement I could suggest would be perforated paper. I hate to suggest a better grade of paper for markers because this paper is so nice as it is. I am happy to put the page under my work if the tradeoff is such luscious paper for my pencils.

While there is a listing at the back of the book (with cross reference to the page the bird is printed on), here is a listing of the birds included: American Goldfinch, Bar-headed Goose, Barn Owl, Black Kite, Blue-Footed Booby, Blue Jay, Blue Tit, Bobolink, California Quail, Common Tailorbird, Domesticated Turkey, Eurasian Teal, European Robin, Flamingo, Golden Eagle, Greater Roadrunner, Gyrfalcon, Hoopoe, Hummingbird, Indian Roller, Kingfisher, Kookaburra, Laughing Dove, Little Cormorant, Little Ringed Plover, Magpie, Mandarin Duck, Ostrich, Peacock, Pink-Backed Pelican, Purple Heron, Rainbow Bee-Eater, Red-Breasted Goose, Rhode Island Red, Rockhopper Penguin, Rose-Ringed Parakeet and Tawny Owl.