Daily Archives: September 27, 2017

Fantastic Cats: Coloring Book for Adults

By: Ruth Sanderson

Rating: 5 of 5

Unlike many of Ruth Sanderson’s recent grayscale coloring books, this lovely book of cat designs are done in line drawing format. The designs show a variety of stylized cats and anthropomorphic cats (those wearing human clothes and displaying human characteristics.) Interestingly enough, it is the latter cats which look most realistic though they are dressed as humans. One of my favorite designs is of a cat in human clothes who apparently has kittens as pets.

The stylized cats have bold lines and have plenty of room for shading and ease of coloring. The anthropomorphic cats are done with a lighter touch and a high level of detail. Most also include some small and intricate areas to color.
There are 24 designs in this book and there are are 12 additional bonus pages that are duplicates of half of the original designs in the coloring book. This is fun to try different techniques or colors on (or to give away to friends if you are so inclined.)
This is what I discovered while coloring in this book and testing my coloring medium on the paper:
24 Cat designs plus 12 bonus designs for a total of 36 line drawing coloring pages
Printed one side of the page
Paper is typical inexpensive quality used by CreateSpace: white, thin, slightly rough and non-perforated.
The designs do not extend into the binding area. The designs have a framing line at the outer edges
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 (like Verithins) 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.

Colour My Sketchbook Wild 2: Greyscale Colouring Book

By: Bennett Klein

Rating: 5 of 5

I have purchased many of Bennett Klein’s grayscale coloring books and one of my favorites is Colour My Sketchbook Wild. When I saw that Mr. Klein had a follow-on volume, Wild 2, I purchased it immediately and sight unseen. In the Wild coloring books, Mr. Klein steps away from his beautiful and unusual fantasy designs and looks at animals in a much more realistic manner.

I noticed that, unlike the first volume, Mr. Klein’s daughter, Mae, does not seem to be involved in this coloring book. I’ve seen that she has a highly successful coloring book in her own right now. It makes for a difference between the two volumes. The first one had lace-style backgrounds but this one does not. When there are backgrounds in this images, they are more realistically portrayed. Many designs simply do not have backgrounds at all. I like to have the change as it provides a different challenge for me to color.
With grayscale coloring, I prefer to use both my markers and my colored pencils. I use markers for background and first layer of colors and then pencils for details and shading.
The artist has once again provided a table of contents with the title of the designs. While they don’t list the animals by name, Mr. Klein has given a title to each of his artworks, such as: Balanced Beauty (a lovely swan image in yin/yang styling), Butterfly Fly-By (a frog dangling from a branch as a butterfly flies by) and Deco Hive (bees with a highly stylized hive.)
This is what I experienced while coloring in this book and testing my coloring medium on the paper.
25 Hand-drawn wild animal grayscale designs with beautiful backgrounds
Designs are printed on one side of thin, slightly rough non-perforated paper typical of CreateSpace. All of the paper is white; even the one with black background, (it is black tone printed on white paper.)
Glue Binding
Easy to open to flat position for coloring
Designs do not merge into the binding and there is plenty of room to cut pages out if you choose to do so
Alcohol and water-based markers bleed through the page to some degree. Water-based bleed through in spots while alcohol-based bleed through freely
Gel pens and India ink pens leave shadows of color on the back of page. India ink can bleed through if you use multiple layers or apply heavily.
Colored pencils work well with this paper. Both oil and wax based provide good color when I use multiple layers of the same color. I am easily able to blend (using a pencil style blender stick) and layer multiple colors as well. I generally don’t use blender stick with grayscale as I prefer to use lighter color pencils for my blending to mesh the light, medium and dark colors together. Hard lead pencils leave dents through the back of the page.
Because of the bleed through and dents, I suggest (and use) a blotter page below my working page no matter what medium I use. I prefer card stock but several sheets of heavyweight paper work as well.