Daily Archives: March 28, 2016

Folk art and hand-drawn easily describes two of the things I look for most in coloring books. I love the whimsical and endearing style of folk art and any design which is hand-drawn gives me an assurance that the work is original and that I will (hopefully) see the vision that the artist set out to present. This coloring book has both of these criteria and is a book that I will really enjoy coloring.

The designs are in two sizes. There are 22 which are full page designs and then there are 20 which have been sized down to note/greeting card size. The artist gives permission to allow you to make as many copies of the smaller size as you wish. That way you can put the design on heavier card stock and create actual cards.

I will provide details about what I found in the physical book below. Here is a quick overview:

42 Designs 22 full size and 20 smaller copies
Designs are printed on one side of page
Waste sheet is included behind each design for seeping ink
Glue Bound
Designs do not merge into the binding
Alcohol and water based markers leak through this paper
Gel pens and India ink pens make distinct shadows of color on the back of the page-by-page
Coloring pencils work well with this paper

The designs are printed on one side of typical CreateSpace paper. That is to say, thin, white and non-perforated. It is an okay paper for most coloring but not a quality grade. It’s something that I have come to accept with CreateSpace published books as it is the vehicle by which artists can self-publish their designs.

The binding is glued so you will have to cut pages out if you want to remove them. The designs do not merge into the binding, so you will not lose portions of the designs if you remove them from the book. The artist has included a waste page behind each of the design pages so you won’t have ink seeping through. If you use alcohol-based markers, I still suggest heavier weight paper as I have had these types of marks bleed through two pages of regular weight paper. You can get the book to lay flat by breaking the spine somewhat.

I test my books with various coloring medium and methods of tests. I’ll include the types of medium I used in testing in the comments section below. Here are the results of my tests:

All markers, both alcohol and water based bleed through this paper. India ink and gel pens leave distinct shadows of color on the backside of the page. Coloring pencils work well with the soft lead blending nicely. The hard lead pencils leave dents on the back of the page.

I will use and I highly recommend that you use a heavier weight blotter page. I like the idea of the extra page but as it is the same thin CreateSpace paper, it can only go so far. You should test your choice of medium to see if it is sufficient for your needs.

I was provided a free copy of this coloring book for test and review purposes.

I will provide a comparison between this book (the US version) and the UK coloring book at the end of this review. The pictures and video in this review are only of the US version unless otherwise noted for comparison purposes. I’ve included one photo with both books to show the different colors of the page. The UK book is at the bottom and the US book is at the top of the photo.

This is a beautiful coloring book which presents Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in a wonderful way embracing both the oldest illustrations (apart from this Lewis Carol did himself for a very limited audience) and new and modern images which are all married together to create a new way of looking at an old favorite. The original illustrations from the MacMillan version of the book by Sir John Tenniel are used, along with quotes from the book. While most of the designs involve the characters, there are a number of wallpaper type designs. In this book, I actually enjoy those as much as they have chosen to use characters in a fresh and fun way to create these repetitive designs.

The coloring book is well made with flaps on the front and back of the attached cover with coloring opportunities on all sides. The paper of the cover is slick, so you might have to choose medium carefully for those areas. The cover has a partially colorized version of Alice but the rest of the cover is done in black and red on slightly off-white with touches of beautiful gold foil.

The designs are printed on both sides of the heavyweight off-white non-perforated paper with many designs spanning across two pages. The binding is sewn rather than glued which means you can remove multiple pages by snipping through a few threads. Designs do merge into the binding area and there are two-page spreads in the book. In my book, the pages line extremely well, so I will not be removing pages from the book. I find that lining the two page designs up after removing them becomes very difficult. I can easily get the book to lay fairly flat for coloring purposes.

I test my coloring books with a wide variety of mediums which I will list in the comments section of this review. I went back and performed the exact same tests on both the US and UK versions to be able to give a proper comparison.

All of my alcohol-based markers bled through this paper. My water-based markers were mixed with fine tips leaving color shadows but ultra-fine not bleeding through. India ink pens did not bleed through either. Gel pens did not bleed through but bigger nib pens did require extra drying time. My coloring pencils worked excellently with this paper. The soft core went on thick with great coverage. They blended, layered, and burnished well. The hard lead pencils made good precise lines and did not dent through to the back of the page.

Much as I enjoy using alcohol-based markers, I won’t be using them in this book. I will use a mix of water-based markers, gel pens and coloring pencils so that I can color every page of the book. If you want to use alcohol-based markers, they look great on the page but you will be sacrificing the backside of page you are working on.

Comparison between US and UK version of this coloring book:

The books weight essentially the same, with the UK version weighing 1.11 pounds and the US version weighing 1.10 pounds. They are the same size at 11 x 8 15/16 x 3.8 inches. The images are all the same, though there are minimal cropping differences between the two but nothing that makes a huge difference.

The one real item of note that is different between the two is that the paper the UK copy is printed on is a fairly bright white. The US version is printed on an off-white shade. The inside of the cover of the UK version has black line printing on white and the US is white on an almost cream color. Also, the copyright page is different, of course.

Coloring medium worked as well for both versions of the coloring book.

All in all, unless the color of the paper makes a big difference to you, I don’t see any reason to prefer one book over the other. I would be happy with either book. I purchased the UK version long before there was a pre-order of the US version available otherwise, I probably would have waited to see the quality of and been extremely happy with the US version.

When I first was able to pre-order Wonders of Creation there was no explanation of what the coloring book would contain. As the publisher was Zondervan, I assumed that it would be Christian or religious-based artwork. As it turns out, except for a reference to God on the introduction page and a cite for non-existent Bible verses on the copyright page, the book has no religious connotations at all.

At the time I am writing this review, the product description refers to full text NIV language and 50 pages of designs. I am left wondering if somehow the extra 41 pages of designs replaced the Bible verses. Whatever the situation, there are no Bible verses in my copy of the book (as you can see once my silent page-by-page flip-through video posts.) The back of the actual book refers to over 90 pages of designs (I count 91), so I think that the error is in the product description itself.

There are 91 full pages of hand-drawn designs by two very talented ladies: Cindy Wilde and Pimlada Phuapradit. There are additional coloring opportunities on the introductory and title pages. The designs are beautiful and are printed very well. While the book did not meet my expectations it is definitely one that I will enjoy coloring in for other reasons. I don’t know which artist is responsible for which design; however, I can say that I like all of the designs and that they mesh well together in the book.

There are a wide range of designs, including: animals in landscape scenes, doodle animals of many types, trees and flowers, birds, fish and other sea creatures, and some lovely interpretative mandalas. Some of the animals et al include squirrels, deer, reptiles, jellyfish, crab, dragonflies, butterflies, hares, hedgehogs, elephans and much more.

I will provide detail below on the physical book but here is an overview of what I found in it:

91 pages of Hand-drawn Designs mostly animals
Printed on both sides of the page
Pages are not perforated
Designs do merge into the binding area
Designs do spread across two pages
Glue Binding
Alcohol-based markers seep through the page
Water-based markers were a mixed lot most showed color shadows on back of the page
India ink pens left a shadow on back of the page
Gel pens did not leave a shadow but required extra drying time
Coloring pencils work very well with this paper

The designs in this book are printed on both sides of heavyweight white non-perforated paper. The cover of the book is quite lovely with very colorful flowers and has matte deep fuchsia pink foil on accenting touches.

The binding of the book is glued. A number of designs do merge into the binding. There are fifteen design that spread across two pages. The alignment of my two-page spreads is mixed. Some are well done and others are off considerably. Because of the way the designs are printed in this book, I cannot recommend removing pages from the book. You will lose parts of the designs and in some cases, the loss would be important. I was able to get the book to lay open in a fairly flat manner for coloring.

I test my coloring book with various coloring mediums and a variety of tests. I will provide the list of mediums I tested in the comments section below. Here are the results of my tests:

Alcohol-based markers bleed through the page easily. Water-based markers were a mixed results. My Tombows water-based markers did well with the brush end with no bleed-through or shadows; however, using the fine point marker tip caused deep color shadows. If you use the brush end sparingly, it might not bleed through you should check your markers and how you use them before trying them on a design to see if you get the same result.

All other water-based markers and India ink pens leave shadows of color on the back of the page. Gel pens did not leave shadows but did need extra drying time. Coloring pencils worked very well with this paper. The soft lead pencils went on thick and layered, blended, and burnished excellently. The hard lead pencils had deep color and did not leave dents on the back of the page.