48 Gorgeous Nature Designs in Grayscale printed on one side of heavyweight perforated paper

Beautiful Nature: A Grayscale Adult Coloring Book of Flowers, Plants & Landscapes

By: Nicole Stocker

Rating: 5 of 5

Nicole Stocker’s first grayscale coloring book Beautiful Creatures was my first coloring book in this genre. It was so beautiful and beautifully printed, it set a high standard for grayscale coloring books. I have purchased a number of other grayscale books but none have approach the high quality of Ms. Stocker’s book until now. Of course, this is the second book in her series and it is as gorgeous as the first book.

Where her first book focused on animals, in Beautiful Nature, Ms. Stocker has turned her attention to flowers, plants, and landscapes. I was so very happy to see succulents included as well as some of my favorite flowers (roses, peonies, hydrangea, orchids, and the list simply goes on and on.) The landscapes and plant studies are equally beautiful and will be lovely to color.

Since my first venture into coloring grayscale, I have expanded my skills to include markers as well as colored pencils. I find that both work well with this book. I like to use markers to put a color foundation down and then to add shading and blending with my colored pencils.

Essentially, coloring with soft pencils in this book is simple light colors for light areas, medium for medium, and dark for dark areas. You color the light areas first, then the dark areas. Finally, you come through with the medium colors and blend the picture together. I suggest that you have a blending medium (such as a pencil) at hand when working with this coloring book.

This is what I experienced while coloring in this book and testing the paper with my coloring medium. In the comments section below, I will list the medium I used for testing and which I usually use for coloring all of my projects.

48 Beautiful Nature grayscale designs with plants, flowers and landscapes

Printed on one side of page

Paper is heavyweight, acid-free, slightly rough, white and perforated

Pages are water-marked on the back with an area for you to sign your projects

Alcohol-based markers bleed through the paper readily

Water-based markers bleed through in tiny spots with the exception of my Tombows brush end markers which did not bleed through in my tests.

Gel pens and India ink pens do not bleed through.

Colored pencils work remarkably well with this paper. I could lay down great color, layer, and blend equally well with both wax and oil based pencils. I did find that soft lead pencils were somewhat easier to work with as they blend more readily.

If you use markers, I suggest that you either remove the pages from the book to color or use a blotter page below your working page to keep ink from seeping through to the page below. I use card stock but a couple of sheets of heavyweight paper work just as well.