Monthly Archives: October 2018

This is a cute forest inspired coloring book. It is the first Color & Frame book I have purchased, to I didn’t realize that many of their books (including this one) are part of three in one sets. The price of those books are double what I paid, so effectively, you can buy two and get three but it is their choice not yours. I am happy with what I bought but you may want to check for yourself.

The book is filled with animals and flowers and other plant life. The designs range from easy to mildly detailed. While there is a touch of zentangle in some of the designs, for the most part, the animals are presented more realistically than with lots of little designs on their hides, feathers, etc.

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This is a new Nutcracker coloring book by Marty Noble. Most of her coloring books recently have been filled with designs which are intricate and difficult to color. This book has small areas but not nearly as small as other books. It is still intricate in spots but otherwise it is simply detailed.

The designs are lovely and are geared toward the ballet. It is definitely a rendition for adults and is quite elegant. The characters I would hope to find in a book based on The Nutcracker are present. This should be a great book to color in throughout the year and not only at Christmas time.

Depending on when and where it was printed, Creative Haven paper is either slightly rough or slightly smooth. My copy of this book has slightly rough paper.

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This is a grayscale version of Jade Summer’s Chibi Girls coloring book. While I liked the line drawing version, I find this grayscale even more. It’s not heavily shaded – just a light and medium gray. I won’t have to work quite as hard in better the dark colors to show.

As this is KDP paper, be aware that it sometimes smears when blending (if you use a pencil style blending stick.) I’m choosing not to blend with other than another pencil (lighter in tone) but if I could, I would probably use a liquid style blender with my coloring pencils.

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I first came across Denyse Klette’s artwork in her funny and quirky quilt fabrics and panels. I enjoyed her artwork so much, I have purchased all three of her coloring books.

This is the first of the three that has a disappointing issue for me. Otherwise, the book is just as fun and wacky and cute as the two previous ones. The problem I have is the nose on the female gnomes. From the side, they are fine but full face-on, they resemble duck bills.

I’ve looked carefully and found that it is because their noses are portrayed quite large. Much larger than the males both in proportion to their faces and in actual size. The noses on the male gnomes are just fine.

I’m hoping that as I color, I can diminish the look of the duck face. Perhaps using the same color without any shading can lessen it. Too bad the artist didn’t give some consideration to this slight issue. I did notice that the cover image of the book only includes male gnomes so there was no way to see this before purchasing the book.

I still like the rest of the book and will enjoy coloring in it. It just won’t be one of my favorites and there will probably be pages I will pass on.

The designs are detailed and some are quite intricate with lots of tiny details to color. To color some of the tiny detail, I will need to use extra fine nib pens or extremely sharp pointed pencils. For most of the designs, my regular coloring medium will work well.

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This is a second in a series of the Serene Little Village. I like little village coloring books and purchased the first one in this series as well. While that book was devoted to cute animals, this book is focused on fairies. Having said that, there are still little cute animals on almost every page.

The designs are detailed with lots of fun elements to color. The fairies are cute and are busy at work and play. The animals are represented more as animals rather than dressed in human clothes. There are friends of the fairies.

There are some areas with smaller than average elements to color but not what I would consider too difficult or hard to color.

This book is published under the imprint name of Julia Rivers but unlike many of their other books though as with the first of the book in this series, this one does not contain the name of the actual artist(s) responsible for the book. I can only hope that the publisher will encourage that the person(s) responsible for it and we will see new books in the future.

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This is my second Susie Scott coloring book (the first being her Christmas book I reviewed last year.) Her designs are fun and innovative and very cute as well. I hadn’t found what I considered a great Halloween coloring book this year until I came across this one. This is not a scary book and could be fun for a younger colorer to work on. It is also great for adults as well.

I see that she released both of these books last year and, at this point, doesn’t seem to have released any more. I enjoy her designs so much, I hope she does do more books as I would certainly buy them.

The designs have detail but are not difficult to color. Each of the designs have a framing line though a few have finished elements that extend slightly further over the line. It gives the design a dimensional look that is cute and different.

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