Daily Archives: February 18, 2016

I own and have enjoyed coloring in a number of fashion color books by Ming-Ju Sun in the Creative Haven line. This is another great book but it is quite different from the others that I own. Those books dealt with period fashions (e.g., 1950’s, Art Nouveau, etc.) while this is a book called ornamental fashions. The fashions are wildly inventive and creative with lots of detail for coloring. These girls seem almost futuristic Sci-Fy with swirls and twirls twisting around their clothing. I even had problems deciding where the dresses started and stopped. You could certainly show a little more skin that I have by choosing to color areas in flesh tones. I felt that I had more creative control over my coloring with these options and that was fun and different. According to the back of the book, the designs include: “Rosettes, medallions, and sinuous running vines are among the motifs inspired by the decorative arts for these 31 original fashions. The designs adapt ornaments from carpets, textiles, wood carvings, paintings, architecture, jewelry, and other sources.”

The coloring book is well made as are all of the Creative Haven books. The designs are printed on one side of their medium heavyweight paper. The pages are perforated for easy removal from the book. The binding is glued but that is not an issue as you won’t need to cut pages out of this book. I was able to get the book to lay flat by slightly breaking the spine. The designs all stop well before the perforations. Each of the designs has a framing line around it which I really appreciate and always try to mention when I see it. It gives me a natural stopping place if I choose to color in the background and saves me time and ink.

All of my markers (alcohol and water-based), my gel pens, and my India Ink artist pens either bled through the paper or, at best, left shadows of distinct color on the backside of the page. My coloring pencils worked on and as expected for their lead type and for the standard Creative Haven paper that is used in this book. In the four designs I have colored so far, I have used markers, gel pens and coloring pencils. When I used the markers and gel pens, I used a blotter page behind the page I was working on to keep ink from seeping through. You can use heavyweight paper or card stock the same way or you can simply remove the page from the book and not be concerned about ruining the rest of the book.

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) Bic Mark-its (fine and ultra-fine) and 2) water-based Tombows dual end markers (brush and fine point), Stabilo 88, and Staedler triplus fineliners

India Ink: Faber-Castell PITT artist pens (brush tip)

Gel Pens: Sakura, Fiskars, Uni-ball Signo in the following sizes – 0.28/0.38/0.5/1.0 and Tekwriter

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