Daria Song’s coloring books are beautifully crafted stories which follow a young girl (or fairy in the case of “Time Chamber”) though a fantastical adventure. “The Present” is her third coloring book. It is being released in the US later this year under the title “The Night Voyage.” It has a different cover illustration as well as a different title. I will be interested to see if, other than the words being translated into English, there are other differences between the two books. I mention this specifically because the Thai version has 84 pages while the US version has only 80.
In “The Present”, a young girl and her cat are taken on a nighttime adventure to help distribute gifts around the world. As I can’t read Thai, I am not sure of the story but the lands they visit are filled with lots of beautiful designs to color. I especially like the design of a young girl riding a paper crane and of the girl and her cat free-wheeling down a tube-like structure.
The same beautiful craftsmanship to detail is present in this book that I enjoyed so much in the two previous ones. For my first project, I colored a mandala-like design of the young girl jumping for joy while she seems to be juggling a number of balls. I enjoyed coloring this design with a set of oil-based coloring pencils.
This book contains colored examples of the designs as well as instructions on how to achieve certain effects. As I can’t read the language, I can’t say what those are exactly but the ideas behind each photo give me a good idea of what is being used. This is certainly not something that was included in “Time Garden” or “Time Chamber” so I am curious to see if it will make its way into “The Night Voyage”. Also different is that in this book, the cover is attached versus the dustcover of the two prior books. Again, that may be due to it being foreign publication rather than the US one.
While the book is 84 pages, that does not mean that it is 84 pages of design. I count 53 page of full designs for coloring. Most of those designs spread across two pages. A few designs are duplicates as they are provided a second time next to the color sample and are cropped into a single page format. Also note that the sample and the design next to it are not exactly the same. Some of the details have been changed but overall, it is a very similar look and feel.
Here is a quick overview of what I found in this Thai published coloring book:
53 pages of coloring designs featuring a young girl and her cat
Printed on both sides of medium weight, fairly smooth, white non-perforated paper
Three cards you can remove for use by cutting them out – two can be colored if you choose and one is fully illustrated.
Sample Photos and instructions (in Thai) are included
Attached cover
Glue Binding
Designs merge into the binding area; my copy of the book lines up well
I don’t recommend removing pages from this book as most designs spread across two pages
Alcohol-based markers bleed through the page
Water-based markers and India ink leave the slightest of shadows on the back of the page.
Gel pens do not bleed through.
Coloring pencils work well with this book. I found that I could lay down color with a light hand as well as a firm one to get different effects from the same color pencil. The various pencils layered well but blending was a little less than optimal with a lot of color staying behind and very little blending. Hard lead pencils worked well and did not dent through the page.
