Daily Archives: March 19, 2016

This is a coloring book of many cats (though not quite a million of them!) The designs have a type of anime look to them. Their heads and tummies are a little on the large size with a distinctly well-fed look to them. The cats seem to inhabit a kind of fantasy land where anything and everything may just be a cat or somehow cat related. One of my favorites is a two page spread of an art gallery where cats are swapped in for some very famous paintings including Gustav Klmit’s The Kiss and Edvard Munch’s The Scream

Many of the designs in this coloring book are detailed in nature with some having many intricate and small areas to color. It will take some of my smaller nib pens and sharp, hard pencils to color certain portions of these designs.

I will provide more details below, but here is a quick overview of the book:

61 pages of cartoon style Cat and cat related designs
Printed on both sides of heavyweight non-perforated paper
Includes many two-page designs
Designs merge into the binding
Glue Binding
Alcohol-based markers bleed through page
Water-based markers, India ink pens and gel pens do not bleed through
Coloring pencils work well but blending is an issue

The coloring book is a smaller than average book at approximately 9 x 7 x .25 inches. The cover is cute and has gold foil accents. The designs are printed on both sides of heavyweight white non-perforated paper. The binding is glued and you will look important portions of designs if you remove the pages from this book.

Many of the designs spread across two pages and designs merge into the binding on most pages. My book is not well aligned across the two-page spreads. There is a lack of consistency in how the pages meet. In some cases, portions of the design are lost in the binding and in other cases, there is a thin white strip on both sides of the page and look odd in the middle of the designs. I could not get the book to lie flat without some tearing at the binding on a number of pages. It is these two issues which cause me to give this book a 4 star rating although I think the artwork deserves a 5 star rating.

I test my coloring books with a variety of coloring mediums (which I will list in the comments section below.) Here are the results of my tests:

Alcohol-based markers bleed through the page quickly. My various water-based markers, India ink pens, and gel pens did not bleed through. My coloring pencils worked well for the most part, except when it came to blending. This is the second coloring book I have by publisher Lark in the last month where I cannot properly blend my soft lead pencils. The color goes on thick but when I try to blend it, it mostly stays put like a big stain. I can get a little blend at the edges but certainly not what I expect from a quality coloring book.

If you decide to use alcohol-based markers with this book, you will mar the design on the back of the page but I recommend using a blotter page below the page you are working on to keep the ink from spreading further into the book.