Daily Archives: April 6, 2016

I had previously purchased the Anne of Green Gables coloring book by this artist and was slightly disappointed at how many pages were devoted to story telling versus full page illustrations. In Alice this is not an issue. Of the 70 pages in the book, only 14 are this type of story book page (as compared to the 29 in Anne). Other illustrations also carry text of the story and there are more of these in this book. The straight up story pages are also beautifully illustrated with small, intricate, detailed filigree-style designs.

While much of the story is printed in the book, it does not replace having the actual book. It simply reminds me of the tale as I color along in the book.

Other than the story page illustrations, the designs are open and easy to color. In two of the designs, the characters faces are not quite finished. These fit in with the general tone of each design so it doesn’t bother me.

For my first project in this coloring book, I chose to do a design of Alice with the Red Queen. I used Prismacolor Premier Soft Core pencils to complete the design. While some individuals use coloring pencils with a heavier hand, I find that I need to use a lighter touch otherwise I develop elbow and shoulder pain. When I test books, I test using both a light touch and a heavier hand, especially for layering.

I will provide a detailed description of the physical book below, but here is what I found in a brief overview:

70 pages of Designs and Story Book Illustrations
Printed on both sides of page
Pages are heavyweight and non-perforated
Glue Binding
Some Designs merge into the binding
Some Designs spread across two pages
Alcohol-based markers bleed through the page
Water-based markers do not bleed through
India ink pens do not bleed through
Gel pens do not bleed through but require extra drying time
Coloring pencils work extremely well with this paper

The designs in this book are printed on both sides of heavyweight, non-perforated white paper. The binding is glued rather than sewn. You will have to cut pages out to remove them from the book. I could get the book to lay fairly flat by pressing really hard to break the spine.

As 14 designs spread across two pages as well as some designs merging into the binding area, if you remove pages from the book, you will probably lose some portion of the design. Depending on the specific page, you may lose important parts of the overall design. Because of this, I will not remove pages from the book and will struggle with trying to color the entire design into the binding area. This is a common issue with these story coloring books versus straight up coloring books, so I have come to expect this though it always disappoints me.

I test my coloring books with a wide variety of coloring medium. I will include this list in the comments section below for anyone interested. These are the results of my tests:

My alcohol-based markers bleed through the coloring page. Water-based markers, India ink pens, and gel pens did not bleed through and did not leave shadows on the back of the page. Most of my gel pens (except the small nib ones) required additional drying time. Coloring pencils worked extremely well with this paper. The soft lead pencils went on heavy with excellent coverage. They blended and layered easily. Hard lead pencils had fairly good color and did not dent the back of the page.