Jasmine Becket-Griffith Coloring Book: A Fantasy Art Adventure
By: Jasmine Becket-Griffith
Rating: 5 of 5
When I think of beautiful girls in fantasy art, Jasmine Becket-Griffith is one of the first names that comes to my mind. She has brought her ethereal girls to a coloring book in an outstanding fashion. There are 46 pages of coloring art filled with 55 different images. There are 43 full page designs and three pages which include 4 each smaller designs. It is interesting to get the smaller ones and I appreciate that by doing the publishing this way, I get more to color. The artist mentions that it was difficult to choose which artwork to put in the book, as she has so much to choose from. I think she did an excellent job and my response is come out with more coloring books! That should solve the dilemma!
The designs are on the right hand side of the book. On the sheet opposite (which is the backside of the previous design), the artist ha provided the name of the artwork and when it was created and for what purpose. She then gives us some background information as to how and why she created the artwork the way that she did. I think this is fantastic. It really gives a new layer of enjoyment to the process of coloring.
I’m torn about the actual coloring. Her artwork is so fantastic, I am tempted to mimic it (though mine would be a pale and less than stellar shadow.) On the other hand, it is fantasy and now it can become my fantasy if I decide to color it my way. Knowing my tendencies, I am sure to color it my way in the end.
This coloring book is printed with designs on one side of the non-perforated page. There is wording (as discussed above) on the back of the page. The paper is a nice heavyweight cream and the book is a standard coloring book size (about the size of a standard sheet of paper.) There is a beautifully illustrated dustcover; however, the inside of the cover is blank where other publishers sometimes print something that can be colored. The binding is sewn so if you wish to remove a few pages at a time, you can do so with a few snips of thread. Each of the designs (including the smaller ones) has a thin framing line around the outside. I really appreciate being given a natural stopping point as it saves me time and ink as well as giving me a more finished looking project.
All of my alcohol-based markers bled through on this paper. None of my water-based markers did. My gel pens did not bleed through or leave shadows or indents on the back of the page. My coloring pencils worked well for their type of core (soft or hard.) My pencils were especially easy to blend with this paper which is fantastic given the style of design. I will certainly be using alcohol-based markers for at least the first layer, so I will be putting a blotting sheet below the page I am working on. My current favorite is chipboard as I can reuse it over and over but you can also use card stock, file folders, or even a few pieces of regular paper (be careful to check how many sheets you need first.) For anyone interested, I will list the coloring medium I used for my tests in the comments below.
