Daily Archives: September 20, 2016

Creative Haven Art Deco Patterns Coloring Book (Adult Coloring)

By: William Rowe

Rating: 5 of 5

This coloring book contains designs which were first introduced in two Dover books: Original Art Deco Allover Patterns (1989) and Original Art Deco Designs (1973). As I don’t have either of these two previous books, the designs are all new to me. At a guess, the original books were also printed double-side and without perforations so the re-publishing of them in the Creative Haven line makes them much more friendly for those who like to color with a variety of mediums.

The designs are interesting patterns and include shapes that are certainly evocative of the Art Deco period. The designs are made up of straight lines and circles without any sort of swirls which is certainly a trademark look of the clean lines of the art period. I choose to do my first project as a gray and purple scale with colors moving from light to dark in a variety of patterns. I’ll post a photo of my first project as well as samples from the book.

I did not find the designs to be overly detailed or intricate so coloring them was fairly easy. A number of the designs are heavy in black ink but I will simply incorporate that into my color scheme for that page and consider it a saving of black ink.

This is what I saw 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 use for testing and for coloring.

31 Art Deco inspired Pattern designs

Printed one side of the page

Paper is white, medium weight, slightly smooth and has perforated pages.

Glue Binding

The designs stop well before the perforations and most of the designs have a framing line around the outer edge

Alcohol-based markers bleed through this paper

Water-based markers bleed through in spots on the back of the page

Gel pens and India ink pens leave shadows of color on the back of the page. India ink pens can bleed through if used in several coats or applied heavily.

Colored pencils work well with this paper. They lay down good color for nice pigment, layering the same color provides deeper color, and I could easily layer multiple colors as well as blend using a pencil style blender. This was true of both oil and wax based pencils. Hard lead pencils leave dents on the back of the page.

I use, and recommend the use of a blotter page when working in the book. You can also remove a page before coloring. Either will keep ink from bleeding through and damaging pages below. I use card stock for my blotter page.