Daily Archives: January 3, 2016

I have several books by Penny Farthing Graphics in my collection. They are published via CreateSpace which is generally used for self-publishing. The designs are drawn by a variety of artists from all over the world and are licensed via Shutterstock.com. What we end up with is a great coloring book (although on thin paper) with a large and varied selection of designs. Because Shutterstock licenses to others, it is possible that you may have seen a couple of these images in other books as well.

The mandalas in this book are almost all circular in design (one has kind of a triangular look to it, but still has a number of circles within in. What I appreciate most about the designs in this book is that most of them have larger coloring areas which are easier to deal with. There are a couple which have small, intricate parts but for the most part, these should be easy and fun to color. I especially like using my fine and ultra-fine Sharpies with these. For the small and intricate spaces, I’ve recently starting using Uni-ball Signo in the 0.38 size and I have found it excellent for tiny details.

All of the designs 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 behave as expected for their lead time(hard/soft). 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. Since I am using my Sharpies with these, it is a must!

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, Uni-ball Signo 0.38, and Tekwriter

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

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