50 Beautiful and Unusual Designs with an emphasis on Italian art and culture printed one side of the page

Romantic Italy is a beautiful book of 50 designs by artist Augusta Schinchirimini. The hand-drawn designs are divided into several chapters: Carnevale in Venice, Fairy Tale Characters, Forests and Gardens, the Sea, and Classic Ceramic Designs. I love that each of the designs have an entire scene portrayed rather than just a single character or one in which the background appears unfinished. Ms. Schinchirimini’s take on fairy tales is beautiful and unusual. I immediately sat down to color the mermaid (as different from the standrd Little Mermaid image as one can imagine lush and beautiful.) The scenes from Carnevale were what drew me to this book originally and are, again, something out of the ordinary.

The book is printed on one side of thin white non-perforated paper. The binding is glued rather than sewn, so you will have to cut out pages if you want to remove them from the book. All of the designs stop short of the binding, so you don’t have to fight that portion of the book to finish the design and you won’t lose any portion of the design if you remove the page carefully from the book. I really appreciate that the artist included a framing line around each of the designs. It gives me a natural place to finish my project and I’m not left trying to free-hand straight lines at the edge. I was not able to break the spine to lay the book flat but since the margins are large enough, I didn’t need to fight the binding to get to the inside portion of the design.

All of my markers, gel pens, and India ink artist pens leaked through this paper. My coloring pencils worked well and went on smoothly according to type; however, my hard lead pencils left indents on the back of the page. Because the book is printed on one side, I can put a blotter page behind the designs I am working on to keep ink from seeping through or dents from marring the next page of the book. I prefer card stock or chipboard but you can use heavy weight paper or file folders. Just be sure the blotter is smooth or the texture may transfer into your design.

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-Castell Polychromos