45 Designs with 25 having Biblical subjects printed on one side of page

This is a Christian-based coloring book which celebrates joy in life. The artwork is collaboration by three different illustrators: Erin Jons, Ember Canada and Chris Garborg. There are both Christian artwork (primarily Bible verses with a decorated background) and random other artwork, including flowers, animals, hearts, and more. The book alternates between a Bible verse design and a decorative design, so that about half of the book is dedicated to Christian themes. The verses in this book are taken from a wide variety of translations.

For my first project, I chose a cross made up of various flowers. It is one of the few Christian-based designs in the book that is not a Bible verse. I used alcohol-based markers, using mostly Sharpies and Bic Mark-it with a copy of colors from my Copic set as well.

I will provide details about the physical book below, however, here is a quick overview of what I found:

45 hand-drawn designs; 25 are Christian-based
Printed on one side of white acid-free page
Non-perforated pages
Glue binding
Alcohol and water-based markers bleed through the page
All gel pens and India ink artist pens leave shadows on back of page
Coloring pencils work well

The designs in the book are printed on one side of thin, white, acid-free non-perforated paper. The back of the book says that the pages are easy tear-out; however, when I tried to do so, it started ripping the pages, so I don’t suggest this as a means of removing pages. The binding is glued rather than sewn, so I suggest that you cut pages out if you wish to remove them. Many of the designs merge into the binding and you will lose portions of them if you take them out of the book. I was able to get the book to lay fairly flat by pressing down hard and slightly breaking the binding.

I test all of my coloring books with various coloring medium whether I plan to use that medium or not. In the comments section below, I will provide the full list of brands and types that I tested. Here is the results of those tests:

All alcohol-based and water-based markers bleed through the paper to some extent. My gel pens and India ink artist pens did not bleed through but did leave shadows of color on the back of the page. My coloring pencils worked well with the soft lead going on smoothly and blending well. My hard lead pencils worked well, too, but left indents at the back of the page.

As I don’t plan on removing pages from the book to color, I will use a safety page of card stock under the page I am working on. That will keep ink and dents from marring the next design.