Daily Archives: March 16, 2016

The designs in this coloring book are full page (edge-to-edge) and most of them are in what I call wallpaper style a design that repeats its elements over and over again. There are a couple of designs which not in this style but I don’t expect that in the case of a book of patterns for these, I expect repeating elements. Many of the designs are complex and detailed and several have intricate and small details that may be difficult for individuals with fine motor or vision issues.

This 24 designs are all licensed from AE Publications Ltd./Shutterstock, Inc. That may mean that you will have seen some of these images before in other books. I have certainly seen some and it is becoming a bit of a disappointment to me that all of Leisure Arts coloring books are so licensed.

As of this date, they have not come out with any original artwork which is odd given they have a huge group of designers in other crafts so I would expect that they would do something similar with adult coloring books. I bought the six books in the set of Art of Coloring but, while this is still a nice coloring book that I like but don’t love, I probably won’t buy any more Leisure Arts coloring books unless they change this model.

I will provide details on the physical book below but here is an overview:

24 Licensed Pattern Designs
Printed on one side of white perforated paper
Stapled Binding
Alcohol and water-based markers bleed through this paper
Gel pens and India ink pens leave shadows of color on the back of the page.
Coloring pencils work well with this paper

The designs are printed on one side of the white perforated paper. The binding is stapled rather than glued or sewn. You can easily release the pages all at once by removing the staples but I prefer to remove pages one at a time at the perforations. I can easily get the book to lay flat by opening and pushing down on the binding. All of the images merge into the binding through the perforations. Nothing of importance will be lost if you remove the designs from the book.

I test my coloring books with various forms of coloring medium (which I will list in the comments section below.) Here are the results of my tests on this book:

All of my markers (fine, ultra-fine, and brush) bled through the paper easily. My gel pens and India ink artist pens either bled through or left color shadows at the back of the page. My coloring pencils worked exceptionally well with this paper. All soft and hard lead pencils went on thick and creamy and I was able to easily blend both types of pencils.

If you want to keep the book complete and use some of the medium that bleed through, put a blotter page under the page you are working on to keep the ink from seeping through. Otherwise, you can simply remove each page from the book at the perforations.