This is my second book by Samantha Snyder of Doodle Art Alley Books. I’m having a blast with her books. The designs are all fun to color and can be done in an evening. The designs are all hand-drawn which adds to the enjoyment. I find that hand-drawn designs make the project more fun because the end result is always pleasing to my eye. I don’t see where I goofed on a line quite so easily because the design isn’t the precise lines of a computer generated design. A lot of geometric designs fall into the computer generated area. Nothing against those, I have them and enjoy them, too. It’s just that this book is a more unique set of designs. As with my prior book, these are great projects for beginners or anyone with vision and/or fine motor skills issues.
The book is a smaller format than most other coloring books. That seems to be the style of the Doodle Art Alley books. I like it for these designs as they are well centered on the page without dead space around them. The designs are printed on one side of bright white non-perforated paper. The binding is glued rather than sewn, so you can cut pages out if you choose to do so. I was able to break the spine enough to get the book to lay fairly flat and it was easy to get to all parts of the design to color. Each of the designs has a framing line around them. This seems to be the style of this artist. I appreciate it as it gives me a natural stopping point, saving me time and ink.
All of my markers (water and alcohol-based, fine, ultra-fine, and brush end) bled through this paper. My India ink brush pen also bled through. My gel pens (all brands and nib sizes) all left a color shadow on the back of the page. My coloring pencils worked well for their lead type. The soft lead blended really well. The hard lead left indents at the page of the page if I pressed hard when coloring. I have already finished four designs using a medium hard pencil for one and a variety of markers for the others. When using markers, I put a piece of chipboard beneath my working page to keep the ink from seeping through and ruining the rest of the book.
This is my second book by Samantha Snyder of Doodle Art Alley Books. I’m having a blast with her books. The designs are all fun to color and can be done in an evening. The designs are all hand-drawn which adds to the enjoyment. I find that hand-drawn designs make the project more fun because the end result is always pleasing to my eye. I don’t see where I goofed on a line quite so easily because the design isn’t the precise lines of a computer generated design. A lot of geometric designs fall into the computer generated area. Nothing against those, I have them and enjoy them, too. It’s just that this book is a more unique set of designs. As with my prior book, these are great projects for beginners or anyone with vision and/or fine motor skills issues.