Monthly Archives: March 2018

This is a very different style of art from the previous coloring book I have by Ikuka. The Japanese Girls book is in grayscale while Mermaid in Dress is line drawings. The mermaids in the book are young girls rather than adults. They are, as the title infers, mostly in a variety of dresses. It is an unusual concept but fun at the same time. The designs are provided as two copies – one with white on the back of the page; one with black on the back of the page.

In addition to the design pages, there are a couple of pages that seem to be placed for testing medium. Rather than provide a blank page with squares, the artist has included a cute mermaid line drawing. Also, this was done for both the white backed and black backed pages.

The only issue I have with this coloring book has to do with the print quality. While hand-drawn design books, such as this one, will have lines that are thick/thin and light/dark, my copy of the book has spotty lines where some of the line was printed and some was not. This is a small issue and one that I can remedy while coloring but it should not have been necessary to do so.

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This is a really beautiful coloring book of the tale of Peter Rabbit. The story is that of Beatrix Potter and the illustrations are by Charles Santore. They are a hybrid grayscale/line drawing version of the illustrations in the storybook by the same artist. Along with the story and the designs, there are thumbnail color pictures from the storybook on the inside front and back covers. That way, you can use similar colors if you so choose.

The book is a larger than standard format. The designs are a bit of a mix of line drawings and grayscale with a heavy use of gray in the details. There is still area for blending and shading if you desire. It is a really nice mix and one that will be fun to color.

It is set up in true storybook style, with the text on the left hand side (back of page) and the illustration to the right. Some mediums will bleed through the page (see below), which will interfere with the text but if that doesn’t bother you, you can treat the book as if the designs were one sided.

My current plan is to use a mix of water-based markers with pencil accents. This is a book that I will enjoy reading to my grandchildren, so each week I hope to have a new design finished so my grandson can see the progress as we read through the book.

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The designs in this coloring book appear to be hand-drawn and include a lot of wavy lines and “doodle” elements. Further, the scenes are inspired by islands and the ocean. All that I expect from an island vacation are included with lots of ocean scenes, shore scenes, etc. There are fish and other ocean creatures, boats and sunsets but only one scene which includes people (tropical dancers.)

This coloring book is very similar in style (though different images) to one published last year by Okami Coloring (“Island Dreams” Adult Coloring Book: Island Dreams: Vacation, Summer and Beach: Dream and Relax with Gorgeous Illustrations). It may be by the same artist as Okami Coloring and Storytroll seem to be either the same company under different names or are somehow associated (see below.) In both instances, the name of the illustrator is not provided.

I really appreciate the quality of their artists though the CreateSpace paper always leaves something to be desired but wish they had included the actual artists name on this specific book as they do on their other coloring books. They seem to be developing a specific name (Julia Rivers) to cover the coloring books they deliver. This is similar to what another publisher has done with the name Jade Summer.

The designs are quite detailed and include intricate elements with lots of tiny spots to color. I would not recommend this coloring book to anyone with fine motor or vision issues. I would also suggest that, for the intricate areas, use of ultra-fine point markers/pens or really sharp pencils would be best.

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