21 Beautiful Women Designs based on the artwork of Don Blanding printed on one side of the page

When I first saw this coloring book, I felt as if the artwork in the book was very familiar to me though the name of the artist was not. The artwork was done prior to the artist’s death in 1957 but it has a really modern vibe to it. I’m not sure if his artwork made a return to popularity in the 1970’s but that is the time I associate it with my life.

The designs are mostly white lines on black backgrounds (though a few are the reverse.) The women are beautifully rendered head shots and have abstract and/or unusual elements surrounding them.

For my first project, I choose to do a woman with dragonflies around her. Because of the bubbles and the wild wave to her hair, it seems as if she might be underwater. I used alcohol-based markers brighter colors on the dragonflies and lighter, almost pastel shades for everything else.

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

21 Head Shot Designs of Beautiful Women
Printed on one side of the page
Paper is white and non-perforated
Book is Staple Bound
Designs do not merge into the binding
Print has a glossy look to the black ink
Alcohol and water based markers bleed through the page
Gel pens and India ink pens leave a shadow on the back of the page
Coloring pencils work well with this paper but some blending differences

The designs in the book are printed on one side of slick white non-perforated paper. The black ink has a shiny and glossy look and the pages feel slick and smooth. The designs do not merge into the binding and the book is staple bound with two large staples. If you wish to remove the pages from the book, I recommend taking the staples out and then cutting down the crease line. The book easily lays flat for coloring purposes.

I test my coloring books with various mediums and tests. I will list those that I utilized in the comments sections below, but here are the results of my tests:

Alcohol and water-based markers bleed through very quickly and, in the case of alcohol-based markers, very heavily. Gel pens and India ink pens leave shadows of color on the back of the page. Interestingly, gel pens dry very quickly. Coloring pencils work well and go on thick. Blending is slightly different my wax based pencils blended much better than my oil-based pencils. I found that my Prismacolor Premier soft core worked the best for blending. My hard lead pencils went on with good color and did not dent the back of the page.

I am not currently planning on removing pages from the book but I really liked the look of markers on the black background. Because of the mediums I want to utilize, I used and recommend that you do too, a blotter page of heavy weight paper such as card stock. This will keep ink from seeping through and ruining the lower pages.