Daily Archives: June 7, 2017

Magic Beauty: Coloring Book for Adult: Animals, Birds, Flowers, Mandalas, Beautiful Fairies

By: Nadiya Vasilkova

Rating: 5 of 5

This is my second coloring book by artist Nadiya Vasilkova. As with the first book, Magic Totem, Magic Beauty is printed mostly in a grayscale pointillism style. This is the style that was developed by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac during the 1800’s. The designs are beautifully drawn and include animals, flowers, and people.

In pointillism, the image is created by using very small uniform dots of color in place of the brush strokes we are used to seeing in paintings. Similar to Impressionism, the further you stand from a pointillism painting, the more you see the overall effect. The designs in this book are not printed in color but rather in varying shades and density of gray.
As with regular with grayscale coloring, you choose your colors based on the design. Light colors with light dots or areas where there are no dots, medium with medium, and dark with dark or densely dotted areas. I now use a base coat of markers with my colored pencils providing detail and shading.
What is interesting about this book is that she incorporates line drawings as well and some times that have both line drawings and pointillism mixed together. It makes for a unique and interesting design to color.
Along with the 39 design pages which are new in this book (includes presentation page), there are a bonus of 12 pages from Magic Totem as well.
This is what I found in coloring in this book and testing the paper with my coloring medium:
39 new designs and 12 bonus designs in beautiful grayscale pointillism and line drawings
Printed one side of page
Paper is typical of CreateSpace: white, thin, slightly rough and non-perforated.
Designs do not merge into the binding and there is plenty of room to cut out pages if you choose to do so.
Glue Binding
Alcohol-based markers bleed through the page quickly.
Water-based markers bleed through in spots.
Gel pens and India ink pens leave shadows on back of the page. India ink can bleed through if you apply heavily or multiple coats.
Coloring Pencils work well with this paper. I found that I could layers the same color for deeper pigment or multiple colors and I could blend easily using a blending stick. I tested both oil and wax based pencils. I also found that hard lead pencils leave dents through the paper.
I like to use a blotter when working in the book. I use a page of card stock or several sheets of heavyweight paper under my working page. It keeps seeping ink and marring dents from ruining the pages below.

Orphan Black: The Official Coloring Book

By: Insight Editions

Rating: 5 of 5

I really enjoy the TV series Orphan Black and was happy to find this coloring book which is based on it. The illustrations are very well drawn by a team of illustrators (Adam Raiti, Robin F. Williams, and Pablo Matamoros.) The characters are instantly recognizable and many of the iconic scenes from the show are reproduced (though I would have loved a scene of the sisters dancing together, that is not included.)

The illustrations of Sarah, Cosima, Alison, Helena and more showcase the wonderful and versatile talents of actress Tatiana Maslany. That one actress can play so many parts in a series with such believability is outstanding. I also loved the designs of Felix Dawkins (actor Jordan Gavaris.) Really, so many wonderful scenes bring back memories of the series I will probably have to watch the old episodes as I color in the book to create the proper ambiance.
I would have loved to have seen this book printed on only one side of the page so I could use wet medium but it is printed on both sides of the page. Because of that, I will be using pencils for coloring in it (see my tests of color medium below.)
The designs are detailed and some have small and intricate areas to color. For the most part, I do not consider this a difficult book to color (though coloring into the binding is always difficult no matter how detailed or not the design is.)
This is what I found in coloring in this book and testing my coloring medium on the paper
79 line drawing designs derived from the TV series Orphan Black with an additional 15 pages of full color glossy photos from the series.
Printed on both sides of the page
Paper is standard size (11.5 x 8 inches), cream color, medium weight, slightly rough and is non-perforated.
Glue Binding
Book is difficult to open flat. You will have to break/heavily crease the spine in order to get it somewhat flat.
The designs do merge into the binding area. A few designs have a framing line at the outer edges.
Only one design spreads across two pages; the rest are limited to one page.
Alcohol based markers bleed through this paper.
Water based markers, India ink pens and gel pens either bleed through or leave colorful shadows on the back of the page. Tombow brush end pens did not bleed through but started to abrade the paper with a second layer.
If you use wet medium with this paper, it will likely mar the design on the back of the page.
Coloring pencils worked well. Both oil and wax based pencils worked well for providing good pigment. Though the paper is slightly smooth, I was able to layer the same color for deeper tones, layer multiple colors and to blend easily using a pencil style blending stick.