Landmarks of the World: Color Your Way from Barcelona to Beijing
By: Abi Daker
Rating: 5 of 5
This is a coloring book of various iconic buildings from around the world. The buildings range from religious to museums, government, castles, and more. The buildings are from a variety of continents, including: Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia and Europe. The cover of the book (front and back) fold out with coloring opportunities in red line drawings on off-white paper.
I will list the buildings at the end of this review (in the comments section) for anyone interested. The designs are quite intricately drawn and include many small areas to color.
When I first pre-ordered this book, I didn’t realize that it would be architecture in nature. When I think of landmarks, I think of things other than simply buildings. While I am pleased with the book, I was surprised to see only buildings in it. The designs are printed on one side of the page and on the page opposite (the back of the preceding page) is a short blurb about the design what it is, when it was constructed, etc.)
My first project in this book was of of the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. My husband recently spent weeks in Beijing for business and brought back beautiful pictures, including one that was very close to the design in the book. I used a variety of colored pencils to finish my project. I took my inspiration for color from his photo, which I will upload as well as my colored design. I will probably stray from realistic colors in my next projects and just have fun re-making these famous buildings in a wide range of colors.
This is what I found in coloring in this book and testing it with various coloring mediums:
35 Landmark Buildings hand-drawn, detailed, intricate
Designs printed on one side of page (though information about designs are printed on the back side.)
Paper is white, slick, heavyweight and non-perforated
Sewn Binding
Designs merge into the binding area (can remove pages without loss of design by snipping binding threads
Alcohol-based markers bleed through this paper. I suggest using a blotter page below your working page with these. They will bleed through on the writing on the back of the page but the blotter will keep the design below from being ruined.
Water-based markers, India ink pens and gel pens do not bleed through this paper. Gel pens require additional drying time.
Coloring pencils were mixed. I found that both wax and oil based pencils had good color and layered well but blending was a problem on this smooth paper. The color seems to adhere to the original spot and only light blending happens as the very edges. Hard lead pencils did not dent the back of the page.