Daily Archives: November 17, 2015

This is not only a beautiful coloring book filled with 52 intricate hand-drawn designs but it is also an extremely well made one, too. The designs in the book focus on the garden, with many floral subjects. As a gardener, this focus is very appealing to me. The book goes far beyond that and has animals (rabbits, owls, etc.) as well as birds and insects as well. The artist’s style makes me think of whimsical and fun times but the designs also have very intricate and sophisticated styling under the playful surface. Each of the designs seem like they will be a great coloring experience.

As if the designs alone were not enough, the artist has included page and page of information teaching various color theory and techniques. I’ve seen other books with some information in them but this is the most detailed one that I have seen as yet. I’m impressed and will certainly be putting some of Ms. Monk’s suggestions into practice. I’m also impressed enough that I will be purchasing her first book in the near future, too.

The book is very well made and is slightly smaller than a standard coloring book. The pages are printed on one side of heavyweight bright white perforated paper. Some of the designs extend past the perforations but nothing of note will be missing if you remove the page from the book. The binding is sewn in rather than glued.

My markers were a mixed bag when it came to coloring in this book. The only ones that consistently did not leak through were my Staedler triplus fineliners. My Tombows dual end brush did not leak when I used the brush end but did with the marker end. All other markers both water and alcohol-based leaked through. My gel pens did not leak through but needed extra drying time. My various coloring pencils all worked well. Whatever coloring tools you decide to use, you can either put a heavyweight page below the page you are working on or you can remove the page easily from the book to keep ink from leaking through to the next design.