Daily Archives: September 9, 2016

Because of Bethlehem Christmas Coloring Book: Love is born. Hope is here. (Coloring Faith)

By: Max Lucado

Rating: 5 of 5

I have read Max Lucado’s books over the years and have found that his words have always been a straight arrow into my heart and soul in pointing me back to the direction I know I should be following. This coloring book is based on one of his books with his writings and with Scripture quotes/cites as well. The book is illustrated by Lizzie Preston and Claire McElfatrick.

The designs are quite detailed and are Christmas oriented. There are lots of doodle style elements for adding lots of different colors. While the designs are detailed, they are not intricate with tiny spots to color. Approximately half of the designs incorporate wording as well. Some of those designs are more detailed than others. In the designs, there are many Christmas and seasonal subjects, including among them: Christmas trees, stockings, sleighs, snow globes, various animals, the Three Wise Men, the Manger Scene, nutcrackers and even a partridge in a pear tree.

While I really appreciate the designs, for me, the words are what I am looking for first. They speak to the need for a Savior and other life lessons that are important, not only to a believer, but to all. The Scriptures are taken from a variety of sources, including: New King James Version, the Holy Bible New International Version (NIV), The Living Bible, and the Holy Bible, New Living Translation.

This is what I experienced 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 this book and which I generally use for coloring.

124 pages of Inspirational Christmas Designs and words (not including title pages)

Designs are printed on both sides of the page; however the designs are limited to a single page

Paper is heavyweight, smooth, white and perforated

Some designs cross over the perforations and into the binding. Some portion of these designs will be lost if you remove a page from the book

Glue Binding

The book is somewhat difficult to lay flat for coloring. It took an effort to break the spine enough to get it fairly flat.

Alcohol-based markers bleed through the page rapidly.

Water-based markers (except for the brush end of Tombows markers) and India ink pens leave shadows on the back of the page. Tombows did not leave shadows even when I tried dark brown

Gel pens do not bleed through or leave shadows but some require a considerably longer drying time than usual.

Colored pencils, both oil and wax-based, worked fairly well with this paper. With the exception of hard lead pencils in blending, I was able to get good results in pigment with multiple layers of the same color, different colors and blending with ease with a blending stick. The exceptions for blending were my Prismacolor Verithins and Tombow Irojiten. Those pencils had more of a smeary look to their blends than did my other pencils.