Color the Classics: The Wizard of Oz: A Coloring Book Trip Down the Yellow-Brick Road
By: Jae-Eun Lee
Rating: 5 of 5
This is the fourth storybook coloring book I have purchased by Jae Eun Lee. I know that there is a fifth one due out this year and I am sincerely hoping that there will be more next year. I had some issues with the first book in the series (Anne of Green Gables) having too many story pages as opposed to coloring pages but each book since then has had a much better mix. I also prefer that much of the story is now incorporated into the coloring pages rather than taking up a page by itself. To be fair, those story pages have very elaborate designs to color as well but I wanted more of the actual designs to color.
In this book the mix 18 story pages and 50 design pages for a total of 68 actual storybook pages. There are also four pages of thumbnails of the images and nine other pages (preface, forward, and title pages or those pages following the end of the story) which have designs that you can color.
Once again, the pages are beautifully illustrated with highly romanticized images. The designs are detailed but are not intricate with tiny elements. I was easily able to color using just the standard pencil point.
This is the story based on the original book by L. Frank Baum. The story is certainly not complete, so you will want to keep a copy of the book along with it. The story included just gives a little bit of foundation to the pictures which immediately follow it but will not give anyone reading it a real idea of what the story is fully about.
For my first project in this coloring book, I chose a picture that included Dorothy, Toto, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Lion. I used my Faber-Castell Polychromos for this book and found that though these, as well as other oil-based pencils did not blend as well as I might like, I liked the way the pencils worked with the paper otherwise and I used them more for layering colors and shading more so than for any blending. For fun, I will use a different brand of colored pencils for coloring each book in this series to give each one a slightly different appearance.
Here is what I found in a brief overview:
68 pages of Designs and Story Book Illustrations plus extra pages that can be colored as well
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 found that for the most part both oil and wax based pencils worked well except neither were great for blending. Wax-based pencils did better at blending than did oil-based colors but both were acceptable for my use. Hard lead pencils did not leave dents on the back of the page.