88 Beautiful and Whimsical Hand-drawn Floral Designs printed on both sides of page

Flora Bella

By: Peggy Jo Ackley

Rating: 5 of 5

I found this lovely coloring book at a local bookstore. It is filled with 88 different floral designs. It also includes quotes and areas for you to journal as well. The designs range from bouquets to collages to flowers in nature. The bouquets are in vases that range from a simple Ball jar to elaborate china vases.

Quotes and sayings are included in some designs. They may be incorporated into the design or the design may be built around the words. A few of the pages have blank lines on them as well. Some of the designs are intricate and may require ultra-fine points or sharp pencils to color. For my first project, a floral bouquet, I used water-based Tombow dual end markers.

I will provide more detail below on what I found in the coloring book for those interested. Here is a quick overview:

88 Flower related Designs in 9 x 9 x .5 inch book
Designs are printed on both sides of page
Pages are heavyweight and perforated
Designs stop before perforations
Binding is Sewn
Alcohol-based markers bleed through page
Water-based markers, India ink pens, and gel pens do not bleed through
Coloring Pencils work excellently with paper

The artist provides many useful hints at the beginning of the book. She gives great suggestions for directions in which to stroke your color on an item (it makes a difference which item it is), she discusses shading, blending, and erasing. I will certainly take her suggestions to heart in my future coloring projects.

The coloring book is very well made. It is printed on both sides of heavyweight perforated white paper. The binding is sewn rather than glued. None of the designs merge into the binding. Because of this, I would recommend that you remove pages at the perforations instead of snipping the threads. I could easily get the book to open to a flat position.
The artist has either finished all elements in a design or has placed a framing line around it. This gives the project a more finished look and is something that I always appreciate. It saves time, trouble, and ink.

I test coloring books with each of the coloring mediums I have at hand. I will list those mediums in the comments section below if you are interested. Here are the results of my tests on this book:

Alcohol-based marker of all brands and styles bleed right through the paper. Water-based markers, India ink pens, and gel pens do not bleed through and do not leave shadows on the back of the page. My various coloring pencils all work fantastic with the paper. The soft lead pencils go on very thick and creamy. They blend without much effort. My hard lead pencils go on well and do not leave dents on the back of the page.

Because of the alcohol-based bleed through, that is the one medium, I will not be using in this book unless I am willing to sacrifice the back page design. If I really want to use them, I can place a blotter page under the page I am working on to keep the damage at a minimum.

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