Daily Archives: April 26, 2016

This is the first Harry Potter Poster coloring book. There have now been three regular coloring books in this line and the poster book is based on the first two books “Harry Potter Coloring Book” and “Harry Potter Magical Creatures Coloring Book”. I feel that each of the books could have merited their own poster books, such as the ones that have been done for “Secret Garden” and “Enchanted Forest.”

A few of my favorite designs from both books are included; however, I feel that they included a few too many “wallpaper” repeating designs rather than putting in some of the more iconic scenes that were spread across two pages in the original books. There are so many designs I would have preferred but that is only my taste in the artwork. While I was a little disappointed, I won’t detract a star in my rating as the artwork that was included was done extremely well.

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This is a really beautiful grayscale coloring book. It features the artwork of Alena Lazareva and is the first book I have by this artist. I do have another quality book by the same design group, Wingfeather Books and have really enjoyed that one as well (Spirit Animals) which was the second grayscale book I had purchased. I’m very impressed by the beautiful of the artwork. Within minutes of receiving my copy, I ordered additional ones for some family members who want to try grayscale coloring.

There are 38 designs in this book plus four preview pages from Mermaids, Fairies & Fantasy giving you a total of 42 pages to color. I think that is a huge bargain considering both the price and the quality of the artwork.

I generally use just coloring pencils on my grayscale (and I am fairly inexperienced at it in general) and recently have done some in just alcohol-based markers. For my first project in this book, I wanted to use both. I used the markers as a basecoat and then went over the entire design with pencils. What was fun about doing it that way was that I could get the coverage I wanted with the markers and then still make pencil stroke marks in the hair like I do with regularly coloring. It was fun and maybe not as successful as it good be but I will keep trying until I learn the technique properly!

This is what I found while coloring and testing this coloring book:

38 Enchanted Fantasy Designs plus 4 bonus pages
Printed on one side of the page.
Paper is typical CreateSpace which is thin, white, slightly rough and non-perforated.
Glue Bound
Designs stop before the binding area
Book can easily open to fairly flat position for coloring
Pages can be cut out without loss of design
Alcohol and water based markers seep through this paper
Gel pens and India ink pens leave colorful shadows on the back of the page.
Coloring pencils work well with the paper. Soft lead can be put on thin or heavy, they blend and layer well. Hard lead dents the back of the page.
I recommend a blotter page under your working page to keep ink and dents from messing up the pages below.