Daily Archives: November 21, 2015

This is beautiful coloring book by Jane Monk filled with hand-drawn designs that is both lovely and extremely well made. The designs in the book cover a wide range and include a good number of tangled abstract designs that will be fun to color as they can be interpreted to be anything. Additionally, there are a good number of flower designs as well as other subjects, too. The artist’s style is flowing and fun with many of the designs having very intricate and sophisticated elements. I started with with Ms. Monk’s second coloring book Tangled Gardens and, after coloring two of the designs in that book, immediately purchased her first book, too. The designs are simply fun to color.

As if the designs alone were not enough, the artist has included multiple pages regarding how-to color with various mediums. The information is similar but slightly different in both of her books. Together, they are forming the most comprehensive and useful information I have received outside of actual books on how to draw and color. I’m impressed and will certainly be putting some of Ms. Monk’s suggestions into practice she actually covers a number of medium that I have recently purchased and was slightly hesitant to try.

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The designs in this book are very tropical in nature. There are exotic birds, animals, fish, and flora. I am very impressed by the beauty of these hand-drawn designs and look forward to many hours of coloring enjoyment with the book. This book calls for good eyesight and a steady hand as many of the designs include small and intricate details

The designs are printed on both sides of heavyweight white paper that is not perforated. The book is well made with a lovely fold out cover where both the outer and inner parts of the cover can be colored, too. I counted more than 60 designs many of which are two page designs. The designs merge into the binding and some of the two page designs do not line up perfectly when I flatten the book. The binding is sewn rather than glued, so you can remove the pages with a few snips of thread every few pages. I would not attempt to cut pages out of this book as you will certainly cut away some portions of the designs on both the front and back of the page. For most of the two page designs, I can treat them as single page designs if I choose to do so as their shared elements are so insignificant.

My markers had a mixed result 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 coloring pencils all worked well. I would test my markers before using them in this book to be sure that a specific color does not leak through and ruin the design on the back on the page.

I was provided a free sample of this coloring book for test and review purposes.