Beautiful illustrated Coloring book featuring artwork by Charles Santore printed one side of page

Charles Santore: Aesop’s Fables Coloring Book

By: ?

Rating: 5 of 5

When I first received this copy of Aesop’s Fables, I was a little concerned by all of the heavy shading in dark gray and black. I finally determined that the best way to deal with this was by using some of my recently learned grayscale techniques. In essence, I let the shadows in the book become my shading in my colored projects. What I found worked best for me was to use alcohol-based markers to put in the majority of my color as a foundation color and then to use colored pencils sparingly to add slight tonal changes. By utilizing this technique, I was really happy with the finished result.

The designs are all so beautiful and are well done representations of the original artwork. Thumbnails of the original watercolors of each design are printed in glossy prints on the inside of the front and back covers. I found this valuable in looking for clues as to what was what in the design. As I did with my first project, I am sure to create my own colored version as I color my way through the book.

Both my husband and I enjoyed Aesop’s Fables as children and we are both looking forward to telling these tales to our grandchildren. The pictures are representations of the stories, so we will need to have a written version of the tales at hand as well.

This is what I experienced in coloring in this book and testing my coloring medium on the paper. I will list, in the comments section below, the coloring medium I use to test with and which I use most of the time to color my projects.

21 Aesop’s Fables designs based on the original artwork by Charles Santore

Designs are printed on one side of the page

Paper is heavyweight, slightly off-white, slightly rough to the touch and non-perforated

The Designs are bound by two heavyweight staples which can be removed to release all of the page from the book without any loss of design.

Designs do not merge into the binding area

Pages can be cut out if you wish without losing any design elements.

Book easily opens to a flat position for coloring.

Alcohol-based markers bleed through this paper easily.

Water-based markers leave shadows and slight spots of color bleed through on the back of the page

Gel pens and India ink pens do not bleed through the page.

Colored pencils work well with the paper. It has a slight roughness to it that allows good pigment coverage from both oil and wax based pencils. I was able to layer and blend easily with both as well.