“Hello Cuba” by Marty Noble contains 63 designs which is a great value as most Creative Haven coloring books contain 31 or less. I really like that the artist and publisher grouped more together in the one book rather than to spread it out over two books as well as over time. I hope to see more of this expanded subject style coloring book in the future.
The designs are beautifully drawn as all of Ms. Noble’s designs are. There is a wide variety of subjects, including: dancers, advertising (including vintage magazine covers), workers, vintage cars (which are still what are used in Cuba today), animals, flowers and plant life, beautiful landmark and other daily scenes, and of course, tobacco.
When I think of Cuba, I think if beautiful color mixes. With its tropical locations, bright colors and light colors come to mind. With that in mind, the first two projects I colored in this book reflect that. I chose vibrant colors for the two female dancers and when with light colors when working on the vintage magazine cover. For these projects, I used a variety of alcohol-based markers and for shading, I used oil-based colored pencils. In addition to photos of my two projects, I will include photos of the two sample designs from the book as well.
This is what I found in going through this coloring book:
63 Designs reflecting traditional and vintage Cuba by Marty Noble
Printed on one side of white page
Page is white, slightly rough, and perforated
Glue Bound
Designs stop before the perforation and have a framing line around the outer edge of the design
Alcohol and water based markers bleed through to some degree. In order to preserve the rest of the book, I will either use a blotter page below the page I am working on or I will remove the page at the perforations before coloring.
Gel pens and India ink pens leave shadows of color on the back of the page.
Coloring pencils work well with this standard Creative Haven paper. Soft lead lays down good color, layers and blends well. Hard lead pencils leave dents on the back of the page.
