Daily Archives: December 30, 2015

This is my second coloring book by Annette Rand. I enjoyed the first book Rabbits and Hares so much, I came back to purchase this cute coloring book with pictures of rats. The book bills itself as a colouring book for those who love pet rats. While I don’t have rats in my house (my cats would probably have something to say about that), I do love the beauty of nature and animals and these pictures are reflect that and will give me a fun time of coloring.

There are so many cute designs. Some are based on actual rats while others are stylized or made into some adorable but imaginary designs. I think that the steampunk rat will be my first coloring project but I also really enjoy the mandalas. Many of the designs have doodles drawn into the images to make coloring these rats a fun and colorful experience. I love this style of drawing as it allows my imagination to take over and create fun and colorful animals instead of simply realistic ones.

All of the design stop well before the binding. The designs are printed on one side of thin white non-perforated paper that is typical for books published by CreateSpace. The binding is glued but there is plenty of room for you to cut a page out if you choose to do so.

All of my markers bleed through and my gel pens either bleed through or leave a distinct shadow on the back of the page. My coloring pencils work well with the paper and work as expected for the type of lead (hard/soft) though I will note that the hard leads can leave a bit of an indent on the back of the page. I will use a piece of chipboard or heavy paper behind the page I am working on so I don’t ruin the following page with leaking ink or by pressing too hard with my pencil tips. The book has a couple of pages at the back so you can test your coloring medium to see how it works without risk to any design.

While I could wish for thicker, perforated paper, it appears that this is the quality that comes from CreateSpace (which is an Amazon company.) What I really like about the CreateSpace is it is a way that independent artists can get their work self-published. That way, I get a huge choice of design styles albeit with not the best paper.

These are the coloring medium that I use for testing. If there is something else you feel I should be testing, please let me know and I will see if I can add it to my growing pile:

Markers: 1) alcohol-based Copic Sketch, Prismacolor double ended markers (brush and fine point), Sharpies (fine and ultra-fine) and 2) water-based Tombows dual end markers (brush and fine point), Stabilo 88, Staedler triplus fineliners, and Pentel markers

Gel Pens: Sakura, Fiskars, and Tekwriter

Coloring Pencils: Prismacolor Premier Soft Core, Derwent Colorsoft, Prismacolor Verithins, and Faber-Castel Polychromos