Daily Archives: March 21, 2016

I own two other coloring books by Jenean Morrison; however, this the first of her Pattern style coloring books that I have purchased. There are 36 different designs; however, the designs have been done in two ways, so you get a total of 72 coloring pages. The designs range form mandalas to patterns in a rectangular format.

Each design is done as a black line drawing on white background and also a similar style but with many of the elements filled in with black. This should make coloring the design a little easier for someone new to coloring while the designs without black give a great opportunity for the advanced colorist to use their blending and shading skills.

For my first two projects, I chose to do a study of the same mandala in both styles available in the book. The first one is done with Tombow water-based markers on the design with black elements. The second one is done with a mix of alcohol-based markers and Tombows on the more intricate line drawing. It was interesting to see how the black color made the design look very different from the design where I choose all of the colors.

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:

72 Designs Pages 36 Designs done in two styles each
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. Usually, designs are printed on the right hand side of the book. In this case, the artist chose to have each of the similar designs face each other, such that you have two design pages together and then two blank pages together. It is interesting as you can see both of the similar designs at the same time once you have colored them.

The binding is glued rather than sewn. The designs are well centered on the page and do not merge into the binding. This makes it easy to cut the pages out without fear of 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 always try to mention this in my reviews when an artist has taken the trouble to add this feature. It makes it much easier for me to end up with a more polished result. It also saves me a lot of time and trouble not to mention ink.

I test all of my books with various coloring medium (which I will list 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. This will keep the rest of the book in good shape. I also recommend highly that you leave your book in the open position until your coloring is fully dried so that you don’t accidentally mar the design on the opposite page.