Beautiful Coloring Book with Hand-Drawn Designs printed both sides of page

Images of Grace is a beautifully illustrated coloring book by artist, Jacqui Grace. Ms. Grace has created lovely Christian greeting cards along with this publisher for close to ten years. In this book, she has created some wonderful coloring opportunities which speak to the spirit as well as to the imagination. I didn’t realize until after receiving the book that the title is a bit of a play on the artist’s name. I think it has a dual meaning and is speaking about God’s Grace as well.

I will provide details below, but as an overview this is what I have found in this coloring book:

designs are printed on both sides of heavyweight paper
some designs spread across two pages
pages are not perforated
glue binding
images merge into the binding
alcohol based markers bleed through page
water based markers and Pitt India ink pens leave shadows
some gel pens take longer to dry
coloring pencils work great with this paper

I am always happy to find beautifully made Christian coloring books. In this book, there are verses (from the New King James Version of the Bible) generally on the left hand page while the illustration is on on the right hand page.

The verses have light illustrations or may have a type of complete this activity to them. In addition to these style designs, there are 29 full page designs and 12 designs that spread across two pages but a number of these are repetitive type designs that I am less likely to color immediately and would be willing to forgo depending on what is one the back of the page and which coloring medium I will use.

The artist has some excellent suggestions for using the coloring book for part of your worship time: Think about the words in the designs and mull over whether God is speaking to you through them. Memorize some of the verses and/or look them up in other translation. Pray as your color. Add your own quotes, thoughts, etc on pages where there is blank space. (My suggestion offer prayers in these spots maybe pouring out what is troubling you that day.) Share your creations.

The designs in the book are printed on both sides of heavyweight, non-perforated white paper. On the two pages spreads, my book is aligned perfectly. Many of the designs have light illustrations or verses on the back side.

The binding is glued rather than sewn so you will have to cut out pages if you want to remove them. Many designs merge into the binding and you will lose portions if you cut them out. I was able to get the book to lay flat by pressing on the inside of the binding. This breaks the spine (i.e. creases it.)

I test all of my coloring books with the various coloring mediums I work with. I will provide the list I used for this book in the comments section below, you are interested. My tests showed these results:

All alcohol-based markers bleed through the paper quite easily. All water-based markers and Pitt India Ink pens leave some shadows on the back of the page. Gel pens did not bleed through or show shadows but all brands I tested, except Uni-ball Signo pens, required extra drying time. Coloring pencils worked fantastic. The soft lead pencils went on thick with little effort and blended beautifully. My hard lead pencils went on darker than usual and I was able to blend those as well. The hard lead pencils did not leave a dent on the back of the page. If you choose to use markers, there is a good chance you will mar the back of the page you are working on and ruin that designs. Be sure to use a blotter page below your work so the ink seeping through is limited only to the back of that page.

I am really looking forward to spending a lot of time with this coloring book. Most Christian coloring books are not quite as well made as this one, so it will be a pleasure to color in. I’m yet sure if I will remove pages or not. I will certainly be using my coloring pencils in the book and will decide about other mediums depending on what is on the back of the page I want to color.