Creative Haven Victorian Houses Architecture Coloring Book (Adult Coloring)
By: A. G. Smith
Rating: 5 of 5
There are 31 beautifully illustrated architectural designs of Victorian Houses in this coloring book. The designs are re-prints from two prior Dover books, Victorian Houses 2001 and The American House Styles of Architecture Coloring Book 1983. While I don’t have either of the previous books, I have seen images of designs from them. What is different about this book is that 1) the designs are printed on one side of the page and 2) the description of the house is now printed on the back of the page instead of the bottom of the page. Based on the size of the designs, I would like that they may have enlarged the designs a bit as well as there was no longer a need to accommodate the printed words.
The designs are really lovely. My husband grew up living in an older Victorian house and I enjoyed visiting it. Where I grew up (Southern California), Victorian Houses didn’t abound. I always enjoyed visiting San Francisco and seeing the lovely houses that still stood after their devastating earthquake in the early 1900’s. I’ve also enjoyed cross stitching a number of Victorian houses, so I was pleased to be able to get this book.
While the designs have a definite architectural look to them, the artist also included background scenes and people who inhabit the homes. The designs are detailed but not too intricate. For my first project, I chose a seaside house similar to one of my husband’s relatives homes. The book describes it as a seaside cottage in the Stick style from 1881. I used a variety of alcohol-based markers to finish the design. I will include a photo of this as well as the two pages of four colored samples from the coloring book.
This is what I found in coloring and testing this book:
31 Victorian Houses (reprints from previous Dover coloring books) with description of house and style on the back of the page.
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 on the outside of the designs.
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.