Daily Archives: August 3, 2016

Autumn Fantasy Coloring Book – Halloween Witches, Vampires and Autumn Fairies: Coloring Book for Grownups and All Ages!

By: Molly Harrison

Rating: 5 of 5

The first coloring book I purchased by Molly Harrison was her first one with Halloween designs. That was one year ago and since then I have bought many of her books. She has a beautiful delicacy of design that is very appealing to me. In Autumn Fantasy, the focus is on adult witches, vampires, and fairies. There are lots of cats, bats, owls and pumpkins as well.

I recently purchased Ms. Harrison’s Halloween grayscale coloring book and have noticed that the designs in this book are the line drawing versions of those. I’m thrilled with that concept as it allows me to color her designs in two completely separate ways. In her line drawing designs, I generally use both alcohol-based markers and soft lead coloring pencils to finish my projects.

I did note that my book has only 24 different designs rather than 25. I don’t know if that is a problem generally or if only my book has the issue. What I received was four copies of one design (a witch with a cat fairy in her hat.) While I could wish that I had 25 different designs x 2 each, I’m still pleased with my purchase. I’ll happily share my extra couple of designs with others in my family so that they, too, can come to appreciate Ms. Harrison’s beautiful art.

This is what I discovered while coloring in this book and testing the paper with my coloring medium. I will list, in the comments section below, the coloring medium I used for testing and for most of my coloring projects.

24 x 2 and with one having two additional copies Halloween inspired witches, vampires, and autumn fairies

Printed on one side of the page

Paper is typical of CreateSpace publications, thin, white, slight rough, and non-perforated

Glue Bound

Designs do not merge into the binding area. Designs have a double framing line around the outer edge

Book opens fairly flat for coloring if you break or crease the spine hard

Alcohol-based markers bleed through this paper easily

Water-based markers bleed through in spots

Gel pens and India ink pens do not bleed through. If you use multiple coats of India ink, it may bleed through in spots on the back of the page.

Colored pencils work well with this paper. It has a nice slightly rough texture with lots of tooth for catching pigment. I could layer using the same color for deeper pigment, layer multiple colors and blend well using a pencil style blending stick. This was true for both wax and oil based pencils. Hard lead pencils, like Verithins, can dent through the page.

I use a blotter page to protect the pages below from both ink and marring dents. I generally use card stock but have also used several sheets of heavyweight paper for this purpose.