The Magical City is the first coloring book I have picked up by Lizzie Mary Cullen. It is imaginative and wonderfully artistic. She has a style that swirls and gives a new life into buildings and landscapes. There are many cities included in this book. There is also a hidden objects search and find as many artistic coloring books are now including. The key is in the back of the book, along with what amounts to a proof sheet of the pictures in the book with the names of the cities/landmarks/buildings. I’ll include a long listing at the bottom of this review if you would like to look through what is included.
There are 70 designs in this book, 12 of which span across two pages. The book is printed on a good medium weight white paper. The cover does not come off but the inside of front and back can be colored though the paper is extremely glossy. The outside of the cover is beautifully illustrated and colored with a touch of silver foil on it. There are parts left that you can color and the outside is slick but not glossy.
All of my markers bleed-through on this paper; however, none of my gel pens do though the darker colors leave a bit of shadowing on the back on the page. As the book is printed doubled sided on non-perforated paper, I will probably be using my gel pens and colored pencils or will purchase a second book if I feel compelled to use my markers. The binding is sewn in rather than glued, so removing the pages will take a few snips of the thread every ten pages or so.
Many of the designs merge into the binding but as I won’t be cutting the book itself, that isn’t an issue if I take the book apart. For those who don’t take the pictures out of the book, I was able to bend the binding enough to get the book fairly flat.
The cities et al include: Camden, Baker Street (so cute and in the shape of Sherlock Holmes), Chimneys and Rooftops, Bruges, London Panorama, The Shard, Picaadilly Circus, The Great Wall of China, Mount Fuji, Luxor, Coverack, Old English Village, Eiffel Tower, Paris, Soho, Hyde Park, Little Moreton Hall, Tate Britain, The Globe, Stained Glass, Bridge through Town, Paris x 2, Cobbled Streets, Moulin Rouge, Goldsmiths, Tower Bridge, Tokyo, Charlottenburg Palace (Berlin), Portobello Road, Chatsworth, St. Pancras, International Space Station, Northern Lights, San Francisco, Seattle, Chinese Palace, Barcelona, The Colosseum, Syndey, Memphis, Stockholm, Venice, Abbey Road (cute riff on the album cover!), Tower of London, Stephen’s Dome (Vienna), Waterfall, Archway, Chester, Medieval City, Red House (Bexleyheath), Ronda Spain, Malta, Castle on the Hill, Medieval Castle, New York x 2, Carcassonne France, Staircases, City Mirror, Moscow, St. Basil’s Cathedral, Jardin Majorelle Marrakech, Amsterdam, Rio de Janeiro, Ischia Italy, Endinburg, Newcastle, and the Taj Mahal.
