78 Pages of Licensed Designs of mostly Autumn/Halloween themes printed on both sides of the page

Autumn Magic: Gorgeous Autumn Patterns to Color (Color Magic)

By: Barron’s Educational Series

Rating: 4 of 5

As Autumn inspired coloring books are few and far between, I am always looking for new ones. Autumn Magic is the latest entry in the magic series by Barron’s. As I have a couple of books in this series, I was not surprised by either the fact that the pictures were printed on both sides of the page and that all of the artwork is licensed from Shutterstock/iStock rather than created specifically for this book.

With these types of licensed designs, if you own other books of this nature, you are apt to find designs that you have already. That was certainly the case for me with this book. However, there is enough designs in the book that I haven’t had before to make it a fun coloring experience for me. Because of the repetitive artwork, I detracted a star from my rating. I think a company of this size should be able to obtain original artwork and/or license artwork that has not been licensed over and over again.

The designs are well printed on a good quality paper. Some designs are detailed and some are quite intricate and may require special small nib pens or markers or really sharp pencils to color. While most of the designs are related to Autumn and/or Halloween, a few of them seemed less applicable and more general in nature.

This is what I experienced while coloring in this book and testing the paper with my coloring medium:

78 pages of Licensed Autumn/Halloween inspired designs are printed on both sides of the page

Paper is heavyweight, white, smooth and non-perforated

Sewn Binding (you can remove several pages at a time by snipping threads if you choose to do so.)

Designs are single page and do not merge into the binding area

All Designs have framed around the outer edge

Alcohol-based markers bleed through this paper rapidly. If you use these, you will bleed through to the design on the back side of the page.

Ultra-fine and brush end water-based markers do not bleed through the page. Fine point water-based markers do bleed through in spots.

Gel pens and India ink pens do not bleed through the page. However, gel pens require additional drying time.

Colored pencils work well with the paper. I used wax and oil based pencils equally well for good pigment, layering and blending. Hard lead pencils did not dent through this paper.