Creative Haven Art Deco Egyptian Designs Coloring Book (Adult Coloring)
By: Dover
Rating: 5 of 5
The concept of this coloring books is interesting. The designs include classical Egyptian motifs which have been presented in an Art Deco type of style and adapted from designs by Paul Marie. I noticed that many of the type of motif are used throughout the entire book.
The book is not original but instead is based on a Dover book from 2011 (which itself was a reprint of an older French book. The disclaimer in this book says it is a new selection of prints from Egyptian Motifs in the Art Deco Style. I assume that means that there were more than 31 designs in the first book. Also, it doesn’t sound as if the first book was a coloring book. I don’t know if this book has been modified or not for use in coloring but I can say that the designs are very detailed, intricate, and have very small spots for coloring.
The designs are all quite beautiful. For my first project, I chose a design that includes many of the motifs in the book. I used Copic alcohol-based markers and instead of coloring each tiny spot separately, I chose to use a single color over many tiny spots. I can then go over it with very sharp pointed colored pencils to add details. I will include photos this project as well as the two colored samples from the book.
To color some of the detailed elements in this book, you may need to have very small nib pens and markers to get into the little spots. I’ve found that gel pens in 0.28 and 0.38 are great for this type of detail.
This is what I found in coloring and testing this book:
31 Egyptian Motif Designs in Art Deco style
Printed on one side of white page
Page is white, slightly rough, and perforated
Glue Bound
Designs stop before the perforation and have a framing line or finished elements at the outside edges.
Alcohol and water based markers seep through this paper. The alcohol markers bleed through immediately while the water-based markers leave heavy spots of color. I use a blotter page under my working page or I remove each page at the perforation before coloring.
Gel pens and India ink pens leave shadows of color on the back of the page
Coloring pencils work well with this standard Creative Haven paper. Soft lead lays down good color, layers and blends well. Hard lead pencils leave dents on the back of the page.