Daily Archives: October 19, 2017

The Saturday Evening Post Christmas Treasury: Classic Ready-to-Frame Prints and Coloring Pages (Adult Coloring)

By: Marty Noble

Rating: 5 of 5

This is a really lovely coloring and print book based on Christmas covers from The Saturday Evening Post. The book contains both coloring pages and pages with full color prints. It’s unusual to have both on separate pages but I really appreciate the thoughtfulness behind this. I can color the pages at the back of the book and, at the same time, frame or use the colored prints in other crafts. I am picking up a second copy so I can use all 30 print in decoupage projects that I will work on for Christmas gifts.

The coloring pages are wonderfully done as well. While the designs are all rendered into line drawings by artist Marty Noble, the original artwork is based on a wide variety of artists, including: J. C. Leyendecker, Norman Rockwell, Alan Foster, Henry Hintermeister, Manning de V. Lee, Keith Ward, Douglas Crockwell, Charles Kaiser, Stevan Dohanos, George Hughes, John Falter, Richard Sargent, Paul Nonnast and Benjamin Kimberly Prins. I will include a photo which provides the plate numbers, name of the artwork and the artist below.
I love these old covers. I even collected a few years ago but a collection such as these would have been out of my reach. The coloring pages have a good amount of detail but are not intricate and difficult to color. Christmas is my favorite holiday and I’m extremely pleased with this offering. I can only hope that Dover Publishing will consider doing more of this type of offering with other, non-Christmas covers of The Saturday Evening Post.
This is what I experienced while coloring in this book and testing the paper with my coloring medium.
30 Christmas line drawing designs rendered by Marty Noble of famous covers of The Saturday Evening Post, plus 30 full color prints of the same covers
The designs and prints are printed one side of the page with the pertinent information printed on the back of each page
Coloring paper is the usual Creative Haven quality: white, medium weight, slightly smooth and has perforated pages. The prints are on a fairly glossy heavy weight page with a very smooth touch. They are not perforated but pull away from the glue binding very easily if you wish to remove them from the book.
Glue binding similar to that of a notepad pages remove easily from the binding or, in the case of coloring pages, can be removed at the perforations.
This information applies only to the coloring pages:
The coloring designs do not cross over the perforations. There is a framing line at the outer edges of the designs
Alcohol-based markers bleed through this paper
Water-based markers bleed through in spots (somewhat heavier than with previous paper in the Creative Have line) and show colorful shadows 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 when I apply more than one layer of ink.
Coloring pencils work well with this paper. I was able to get good pigment (color) lay down, layer the same color and multiple colors and to blend easily using a pencil style blender. I tested both oil and wax-based pencils with similar results. Hard lead pencils, like Verithins, leave dents on the back of the page.
I suggest either removing pages from the book to color or using a blotter page under your working page. I like card stock as it keeps ink from seeping through and damaging the pages below.