Leafy Animals: Midnight Edition: A Beautiful Adult Coloring Book with 55 Intricate Animals to Color on Black Paper
By: James Alexander
Rating: 5 of 5
This is the first coloring book that I have purchased that has solid black pages. I have a number of midnight or chalkstyle books but they are all black ink printed on white paper. With Leafy Animals, the page is a deep black, both front and back, with white ink making up the designs. This process makes the black very true and seems to make the colored design pop even more. I’m using light colors and fluorescent tones to make my projects stand out from the black base. The paper is still the thin, slightly rough paper one can expect from CreateSpace published books.
There are 55 different animal designs of all sorts. The animals are presented in full body with leaves either adorning them or making up the body of the animal. Included are mammals, fish and sea creatures, insects, reptiles, and birds. The designs are simple in the sense that it is just the creature on black background with no extra design. The designs, while detailed, are not overly intricate.
The book is published by CreateSpace and purports to be the first coloring book printed on black paper. I would think that the paper style would become an option for other CreateSpace independent artists and we will see more of it. That’s great with me as I am enjoying the process of coloring on this style of paper. With the exception of colored pencils, it is very forgiving if you color outside of the lines. Colored pencils can overlay the black and give it a whitish, kind of waxy, look.
This is what I experienced while coloring in this book and testing this innovative paper.
55 Animal designs with leaves
Printed on one side of the page
Paper is black (front and back), thin, slightly rough and non-perforated
Glue Bound
Plenty of room to remove designs from book if you choose to do so
Alcohol and water based markers bleed through this paper. You cannot see the bleed through easily but I used a blotter page and it saturated through to the blotter.
Gel pens and India ink pens left slightly discernible shadows on the back of the page.
Colored pencils worked well with the paper. I was able to get good color, layer, and blend well with both wax and oil based pencils. You need to be careful not to color outside of the lines as it is very noticeably different look than the color on the white ink image.
I highly suggest a heavyweight blotter page be used at all times. You can have ink leak through without noticing and ruin the pages below.