62 Great Forest Inspired and Hand-drawn Designs printed on one side of page

First of all, as of the time I am writing this review, the cover shown on the product page is different from the one that I received. It is the same title and the same author but it has birds rather than a rabbit on it.

The subtitle to this coloring book refers to Woodland Creatures. The book certainly has those in abundance but it also has lots of forest plant life as well. There are lots of animals, including: birds, rabbits, bears, squirrels, butterflies, deer and even a collage of many of these creatures together. Additionally, there are trees, leaves and flowers. At the end of the book, there are twelve designs that focus on patterns and flowers while not something I necessarily think of in the forest coloring book but lovely nonetheless.

For my first project in this book, I chose to do a leaf study. I guess I am always longing for what lies ahead. During fall and winter, I think of spring and gardening. Apparently, during spring, I think of the change of colors that comes with fall. For my project, I decided to use reds, oranges, purples, yellows and greens the colors I see when the leaves start turning. I used Bic Mark-it alcohol-based markers along with Tombow water-based markers to get the look I wanted.

I will provide detailed information about the physical book below, but here is a quick overview of what I found:

62 Hand-drawn Forest Animal, Plant, and Flower Designs
Printed on one side of the page
Paper is perforated
Designs do not merge into the binding area
Glue Binding
Book can easily open to flat position
Alcohol-based markers bleed through the page
Water-based markers and India ink artist pens leave color shadows on back of the page
Gel pens do not leak through the page
Coloring pencils work well with this paper

The designs in this coloring book are printed on a single side of the medium weight, perforated paper. The binding is glued but I suggest that if you want to remove pages from this book, you simple take them out via the perforations.

The designs stop short of the perforations so you won’t lose any portion of the design if you do decide to take pages out. I could easily get the book to lay flat by creasing the binding hard. For my preference, I will remove pages as the book is somewhat thick to color in (because you get so many designs in this book.)

I test all of my coloring books with a variety of coloring medium. I will include the testing methods and the medium in the comments section following this review, but here is what my testing discovered:

Alcohol-based markers of all brands and tips bleed through this paper. Water based markers leave color shadows on the back of the page but my Tombows fine point marker left abrasions on the paper. The brush end worked well and that is what I generally use. I think it is more the case that the fine points are more abrasive then most rather than a fault of the paper.

My India ink pens left a shadow but went on provided a good color on the page. My gel pens did not bleed through and did not require additional drying time; however, I found that they left slight dents on the back of the page. My coloring pencils worked extremely well with this paper. My soft lead pencils went on thick and creamy, layering and blending well. This was true with both wax and oil based pencils. My hard lead pencils went on with good color but, as with gel pens, they left dents at the back of the page.

I plan to remove each page from the book as I color it but if you plan to color within the book, I highly recommend that you use a blotter page behind the page you are working on. That will keep the rest of the book safe from seeping ink and marring dents.