Coloring Book with many Cat Breeds and Fictional Cats as well designs printed on one side of perforated page

This is my third coloring book by artist and author, Samantha Cole. I’ve found her books to be fun to color as well as information to read this is an unusual combination in coloring books! It is a coloring book that has many different breeds of cats represented both large and small and wild and domesticated (look to the bottom of this review for a full listing.) The cats are beautiful line drawings that will give me a great opportunity to use my blending skills to give them my preferred color of fur. There are also representations of fictional cat groups (such as Cats of the Sky, Familiar Spirits, etc.)

Each design show the cat in a great setting that makes coloring each page more fun for me. The back of each design has information about the breed of cat represented and their history as well as a bit about their temperament. I like that the artist took advantage of the blank space on the back to give information I don’t mind if my inks leak through into this area as I will still be able to read it if I choose to do so.

The designs are printed on one side of a medium weight perforated paper. The back is printed with the breed/information mentioned above. The binding is glued rather than sewn, but not a problem as you can remove the page at the perforation. Most of the designs stop before the perforations. There are a couple that extend further but you won’t lose any essential design elements if you choose to remove those pages from the book.

All of my markers bleed through this paper to some degree. My gel pens leave a shadow of color on the backside of the page but don’t need any extra drying time. My coloring pencils do well on this paper and behave as expected for the type of lead (soft or hard.) As back of the page is blank, I will simply use chipboard (my favorite as I can reuse it many times), heavyweight paper or even a manilla folder under the page I am working on to keep ink from seeping through and ruining the rest of the book. You can also simply remove the page from the book to color but I still recommend using a blotter sheet below to keep the surface of your table clean.

These are the coloring medium that I use for testing. If there is something else you feel I should be testing, please let me know and I will see if I can add it to my growing pile:

Markers: 1) alcohol-based Copic Sketch, Prismacolor double ended markers (brush and fine point), Sharpies (fine and ultra-fine) and 2) water-based Tombows dual end markers (brush and fine point), Stabilo 88, Staedler triplus fineliners, and Pentel markers

Gel Pens: Sakura, Fiskars, Uni-ball Signo 0.38/0.28 and Tekwriter

Coloring Pencils: Prismacolor Premier Soft Core, Derwent Colorsoft, Prismacolor Verithins, and Faber-Castel Polychromos

Here are the breeds represented in the book (from the Cat-alog):

Egyptian Mau, Ship Cats, Cats of the Sky, Turkish Van, Lion, Manx, Jaguar, Siamese, Cat Sith, Japanese Bobtail, Lynx, Abyssinian, Tiger, Norwegian Forest Cat, Panther, Persian, Snow Leopard, Chartreux, Familiar Spirits, Maine Coon, Cheshire Cat, Sphynx, Bombay, Scottish Fold, Merlion, Bengal, Snowshoe, Savannah, Singapura, and Cats of Rome.

I received a free copy of this coloring book for test and review purposes.