Daily Archives: February 19, 2016

I purchased the larger format of this book which includes more designs and some very sturdy punch-out coloring elements. In this book, the designs have been sized down and have been cropped. At approximately 6 x 8 inches, it is indeed pocket size and very portable. In some instances, the cropping has taken a pretty big bite of the picture but there sometimes has to be a trade-off to get a small format book. I plan to take this book and its companion pocket format book with me when I report for jury duty. It will certainly be a great way to spend time while waiting to be called for a jury.

If you take it on the go, just be sure to take appropriately sized coloring medium with you. When the designs were shrunk, they also became intricate and small versus merely detailed. I find that my small nib markers, gel pens, and my hard lead ultra sharp pencils work best with these designs in this format. I also enjoy using my Tombows and doing a large swathe of color rather than trying to color in each tiny detail. I will save the same design in the larger book to have fun doing the detail work. I suggest that this is a good book for individuals with steady hands and good eyesight. If you have issues in those areas, you may want to take a look at the larger version of the book.

There are 32 hand-drawn designs in the coloring book with 12 of them Biblical inspired. That gives the colorist a good range of designs to color with a little more than a third being spiritually inspiring. The Scriptures in the book are taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation and The Holy Bible, New International Version.

While I am always looking for Christian-based coloring books which focus entirely on the scriptures, it is good to have a more varied book on hand, too.

The coloring book has an elastic band which is attached at the back and holds the entire book together very nice if you have it thrown in a handbag or backpack. The designs are printed on one side of perforated paper. The design extend beyond the perforations and, in some cases, you will lose parts of the design when you remove the page. Some of the lost area may be important to the designs. The binding is glued rather than sewn but you can remove the designs at the perforations. I was able to get the book to lay fairly flat by push quite hard and breaking the spine. The publishers has used a red ink on the three unbound sides of the page and in some of the designs, a little of the ink as crept further onto the page. It didn’t interfere too much with my coloring but it was an additional expense on their behalf that had a detrimental effect.

All of my markers (both alcohol and water based) bled through this paper to some degree. My gel pens and India ink artist pens did not leak through. My soft lead coloring pencils worked well but did not go on as thick as on some better grade books. My hard lead pencils worked as expected and did not dent the back of the page. I recommend a cutting down some card stock or other heavy paper to act as a blotter with this book. Or, if you prefer, you can simply remove the page from the book before you start to color. In the comments section below, I will list the coloring medium I used in testing this book.