Color the Classics: Beauty and the Beast: A Deeply Romantic Coloring Book
By: Jae-Eun Lee
Rating: 5 of 5
t the time I am writing this review, there are now three classic storybook coloring books released by Jae Eun Lee. I was less pleased by the number of simply story book pages as compared fully coloring pages in the first release Anne of Green Gables. In Alice In Wonderland and now again, in Beauty and the Beast, I appreciate that there are more coloring pages and that some of the story is inset in those pages instead of taking up a lot of the book with story. Of the 72 design pages in Beauty, only 14 are simply illustrated story book pages. Note that the book is listed as having 85 pages but that includes title pages, the foreward, and the thumbnails images at the back of the book.
To be clear, the story portrayed in this book is not the happy, feel-good version that we have seen on the big screen. This story goes back to the roots of the tale and includes some less than happy characters (for instance, Beauty’s sisters apparently plot to have the Beast devour Beauty.) While the story harkens back to the original, it is in no way complete. You may want to pick up a classic telling of the story to keep along side the coloring book for future reading and reference.
I really love the illustrations in this book as I have the two prior ones. Artist Jae Eun Lee has a beautiful ability to draw and make the scenes highly romantic. I found that the designs were open and flowing and easy to color without resorting to specialty pens to get into tiny spots.
For my first two projects in this coloring book, I chose to do first a design of Beauty with the Beast and then for the second design, I chose a lovely design of hands in lace partial gloves. I used Caran D’Ache Pablo oil-based Colored Pencils. While I found that these, as well as other oil-based pencils did not blend as well, I liked the way the pencils worked with the paper otherwise and I used them more for layering colors than for any blending. I might have used Verithins for the lacework but I am trying to keep my coloring pencils consistent within each book in this series. For fun, I will use a different brand of colored pencils for each book going forward to give each one a slightly different appearance.
Here is what I found in a brief overview:
72 pages of Designs and Story Book Illustrations
Printed on both sides of page
Pages are heavyweight, slightly smooth and non-perforated
Glue Binding
Some Designs merge into the binding
Some Designs spread across two pages
Alcohol-based markers bleed through the page
Water-based markers do not bleed through
India ink pens do not bleed through
Gel pens do not bleed through but require extra drying time
Coloring pencils did well in laying down good color with this paper. I was able to use them with a light touch as well as with multiple layers for a more solid appearance. Colors also layered well over other colors. Wax-based pencils did better at blending than did oil-based colors but both were acceptable for my use. Hard lead pencils did not did through the back of the book.