Daily Archives: March 11, 2016

This is my second coloring book by Jenean Morrison. As with the first, one of the things I appreciate most about this coloring book is the just-right level of detail. I can choose to either lay down a single layer of color or, as I have the room to do so, I can play with blending and shading.

The designs in this coloring book are filled with flowers, birds, and butterflies. Sometimes they are all together and sometimes by themselves. The designs range from realistic presentations to mandalas and even to geometric patterning (such as a butterfly over and over again.) Thus, a wide range of styles in a single coloring book.

For my first project, I chose to do a mandala style design that included all three elements: birds, butterflies, and flowers. I used alcohol markers for the initial over-all color and then shaded using soft lead coloring pencils.

I will provide a more comprehensive discussion of what I found in the book below for those who care for that level of detail. Here is an overview of the major points:

53 Designs Pages featuring flowers, birds, and butterflies
Designs printed on one side of white non-perforated paper
Glue binding
Designs do not merge into the binding
Alcohol and water-based markers bleed through page
Gel pens and India ink pens leave color shadows on back of page
Coloring pencils work very well

The designs in the book are printed on one side of white non-perforated paper. The binding is glued rather than sewn. The designs are well centered on the page and do not merge into the binding. If you want to remove pages from the book, you can cut them out without losing any portion of the design.

The artist has either finished all of the elements on the page or has included a framing line on the outer edges. I so appreciate this thoughtfulness in design. It makes it much easier for me to end up with a more polished result as well as savings me time, ink and trouble while I am coloring.

I will list the coloring medium I used to test this coloring book in the comments section below. Here is what my tests discovered:

Alcohol and water-based markers bleed through the page. Gel pens and India ink pens leave shadows of color on the back of the page. Coloring pencils lay down extremely well. The soft lead pencils go on thick and can be blended easily. The hard lead pencils have good color but leave dents on the back of the page.

Because of the results above, I have used and recommend using a blotter page of heavyweight paper or card stock behind the page you are working on. That will save the next design from seeping ink and/or dents marring it.