Magic totem: Coloring Book for Grown-Ups, Adult. Beautiful decorative animals, birds, flowers
By: Nadiya Vasilkova
Rating: 5 of 5
I’m fairly new to working with grayscale coloring and Nadiya Vasilkova’s designs are the only ones that I have done in pointillism grayscale. It was with great pleasure that I discovered that she had recently published a large number of her beautiful animal designs in this coloring book. In addition to 34 wonderful animals, there are an additional 5 similar designs in a variety of subjects as well as 10 great line drawings with slight amounts of pointillism that I can use for regular coloring.
The majority of this coloring book is printed in pointillism style. This is the style that was developed by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac during the 1800’s. I’m not as familiar with Mr. Signac’s work but I have seen (and studied in art history) some of Mr. Seurat’s works such as A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
In pointillism, the image is created by using very small uniform dots of color in place of the brush strokes we are used to seeing in paintings. Similar to Impressionism, the further you stand from a pointillism painting, the more you see the overall effect. The designs in this book are not printed in color but rather in varying shades and density of gray.
As with regular with grayscale coloring, you choose your colors based on the design. Light colors with light dots or areas where there are no dots, medium with medium, and dark with dark or densely dotted areas. I’ve mostly used colored pencils with my grayscale but have recently begun using a variety of markers as well.
For my first two projects in this book, I used markers. With the lion, I then went over the entire designs with colored pencils as well. Using markers has given me a very different look to my projects and is something that I am pleased to be trying and learning.
This is what I found in coloring and testing this book:
49 Beautiful Designs with 39 in pointillism style
Printed on one side of the page
Paper is typical CreateSpace paper thin, white, slightly rough and non-perforated.
Glue Bound
Designs do not merge into the binding area
Alcohol and water-based markers bleed through the page (I suggest you use a blotter page under your work.)
Gel pens and India ink leave colorful shadows on the back of the page.
Coloring pencils work well with this paper both oil and wax based pencils lay down good color, layer and blend well. Hard pencils dent the back of the page.