Daily Archives: June 19, 2017

The Age of Glamour: An Art Deco Coloring Book

By: V&A;

Rating: 5 of 5

This coloring book is produced by the Victoria and Albert (V&A;) Museum. The designs which are included are from art pieces housed at the museum (including the V&A; National Art Library.) On my trips to England, I have stayed in Kensington and was fortunate enough to visit the V&A; and this book reminds me fondly of those trips.

All told, there are 49 pages of line drawing designs to color. The designs are beautiful representations of the original Art Deco artwork, many of which have full page color designs right beside so you can look for inspiration at the originals as you color.
Art Deco is the elegant and forward-thinking style of the 1920s through the 1930s. The design patterns and the clothing was elegant and sleek very different from the elaborate styles of the Victorian period.
In addition to these, there are color thumbnails at the back of the book which give information about the original works including artist, the name of the work, how it was produced and where and where it is at the present.
The designs are detailed line drawings in light greenish gray and are printed with white and cream backgrounds (usually elements of both colors.) A few of the designs have intricate and small areas to color.
The one disappointment I had was that the colored illustrations and line drawings were not consistently placed in the book. If the color illustrations had always been on the left side and the drawings to color on the right, I could have made the choice to sacrifice the illustrations and use alcohol-based markers even though they bled through the paper. As it is, I can do so part of the time but in some instances, the line drawings are back to back on the same piece of paper.
This is what I found in coloring in this book and testing my coloring medium on the paper
49 pages of line drawing designs derived from Art Deco period artwork, 35 full color pages of illustrations and color thumbnails at the back of the book.
Printed on both sides of the page
Paper is white, medium/heavy weight, slightly rough and is non-perforated. Back grounds are printed as cream on white with greenish gray line art.
Sewn Binding which is also glued to the cover. You can still snip some threads to remove pages. I won’t do so to keep the integrity of the book together.
Book fairly easy to lay flat in the open position.
While some designs do merge into the binding area, many do not. Many designs have a framing line at the outer edges.
Alcohol based markers bleed through this paper. If you use this medium with this paper, it will likely mar the design/illustration on the back of the page.
Water based markers, India ink pens and gel pens do not bleed through the paper.
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.