Imaginative

I bought this book on a whim, without knowing anything about the artists involved and without having the ability to see any of the designs. I was intrigued by the artwork on the cover and was hoping that the designs in the coloring book would measure up to the cover. The great news is that they absolutely did. This is a intricately drawn and imaginative coloring book of animals. While the book attributes the designs to a team of artists, the artwork is so well integrated, I cannot see a distinct difference from page to page as happens all too often with team coloring books. The designs are intricately drawn and may pose some difficulty for anyone with visual or fine motor skill issues. For the colorist who enjoys a challenge and something different, this is a fantastic find.

The smaller format book contains designs of many animals. While a few are set in what seems like natural habitat, most of the designs put the cute little creatures in fun poses (really, a bee riding a bicycle?) There are so many lovely designs, I really want to and plan to color all of them. Most of the designs have part of an on-going story on the backside of the design page. For those, I will feel comfortable using type of coloring medium. For the designs which are printed on both sides, I will stick with soft lead coloring pencils so I don’t ruin the backside of the page.

Most of the designs are printed on one side of thin white non-perforated paper that is typical for books published by CreateSpace. A few of the pages are printed on both sides and there are a couple that span across two pages. Most of the images merge into the binding. As the binding is glued rather than sewn, it may be difficult to remove a page without losing part of the image. I won’t be removing pages from this book.

All of my markers bleed through and my gel pens and India ink artist pens leave a distinct shadow on the back of the page. My coloring pencils work well with the paper but the hard lead pencils leave an indent on the back of the page. I will use a piece of chipboard or heavy paper behind the page I am working on so I don’t ruin the following page with leaking ink. For the pages that are printed double-sided, I can only recommend soft lead pencils.

While I could wish for thicker, perforated paper, it appears that this is the quality that comes from CreateSpace (which is an Amazon company.) What I really like about the CreateSpace is it is a way that independent artists can get their work self-published. That way, I get a huge choice of design styles albeit with not the best paper. This particular book is an excellent example of a new fantastic artistic team whose work I may never have seen but for the ability for them to self-publish.

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) Bic Mark-its (fine and ultra-fine) and 2) water-based Tombows dual end markers (brush and fine point), Stabilo 88, Staedler triplus fineliners, and Pentel markers

India Ink: Faber Castell PITT artist pens (brush tip)

Gel Pens: Sakura, Fiskars, Uni-ball Signo in the following sizes – 0.28/0.38/0.5/1.0 and Tekwriter

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