31 hand-drawn Summer designs printed one side of page

Creative Haven Summer Scenes Coloring Book (Adult Coloring)

By: Teresa Goodridge

Rating: 4 of 5

This is my second coloring book by Teresa Goodridge. It shares some of the same issues that I had with the first book, which are 1) the designs are very sketchy and seem sized down from the original artwork and 2) the sample colored images in the book (front and back page both inside and out) are of the actual painted artwork on which the designs are based rather than a colored sample based on the line drawings in the book. Even though it has similar issues, I find that I like these designs better and the faces of the people in the book (with the exception of those on the Ferris wheel designs) can be colored with at least a flesh tone marker or pencil.

I can work with the smaller less finished drawings but I think it is a little disingenuous to show the paintings and allow customers to think that their finished projects can look anything like those. It seems like someone made a line drawing version based on the original work. Details are changed somewhat and sizing becomes an issue. The line drawings have a cartoon feel to them rather than the elegant look of the original art.

The designs are evocative of summer with beach, cabin, dock and other scenes which bring to mind summertime activities. There are lots of flowers and insects that make me think of gardening during the warmer months.

For my first project, I chose to do a wooded cabin in the woods. It reminded me of summer vacations that my family has had in the past. I was able to use alcohol-based markers for the first coat of color and then details with my colored pencils. I’ll post a photo of my first project as well as samples from the book.

This is what I experienced while 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 for testing and for most of my coloring projects.

31 Summertime designs with a cartoon style quality compared to colored samples in the book.

Designs are printed one side of the page

Paper is white, medium weight, slightly smooth and has perforated pages.

Glue Binding

The designs stop well before the perforations and have a framing line at the outer edges

Alcohol-based markers bleed through this paper

Water-based markers bleed through in spots

Gel pens and India ink pens leave shadows of color on the back of the page. India ink can spot through on the paper if I apply multiple layers

Colored pencils work well with this paper. I was able to get good color and to get deeper pigment by layering the same color. I found that I could layer multiple colors and blend easily using a pencil style blending stick. This was the case with both oil and wax-based pencils. Hard lead pencils leave dents on the back of the page.

I prefer to use a blotter page under my working page to keep ink from seeping through or dents from marring the pages below. You can also remove pages from the book to color. I like card stock for my blotter page but a couple of sheets of heavyweight paper work as well.