Forest Rhapsody
By: Yu Han Chen
Rating: 5 of 5
I own a number of the coloring books which have been released by Dream State Studio. This recent one is illustrated by artist JuJu (Yu Han Chen) who has a lovely and delicate touch with her design work. What I really appreciate about this particular book (versus the others by this group) is that the design are on a larger scale. It makes it much easier to color albeit the designs are still very detailed and have intricate spots to color.
There are many types of animals in this book, including: deer, owl, lion, rabbit, wolf, seahorse (which doesn’t actually go with the forest theme but is gorgeous), birds, tiger, reptiles and much more. There is also a visual thumbnail table of contents at the beginning of the book to assist you in finding which design to color next. The designs are printed on the right on side of the page and on the opposite side, there is a short commentary about the design. The words are quite poetic and evoke the scene that the artist had in mind in creating it.
This is what I discovered in coloring in this book and by testing my coloring medium on the typical CreateSpace paper:
30 Beautiful and Intricate Animals designs with some doodle styling
Printed on one side of the page
Paper is typical of this publisher. It is thin, white, slightly rough and non-perforated.
Glue Bound
Some designs merge into the binding area. You may lose some portion of the design if you remove it from the book.
Alcohol and water-based markers bleed through this paper. Alcohol flows through quickly while water-based comes through in spots.
Gel pens and India ink pens leave shadows of color on the back of the page. I have had India ink spot through on the paper when I use layers of color or blend multiple colors together.
Colored pencils work well with both oil and wax based providing good color. I can layer and blend well with both as well. Hard lead pencils can dent through on this paper to the page below.
I use and suggest the use of a heavyweight blotter page below your working page. That will keep any ink or dents from marring the designs below.