Molly Hashimoto: Birds and Other Wildlife Coloring Book
By: Molly Hashimoto
Rating: 5 of 5
This is the second coloring book by Molly Hashimoto released by Pomegranate. While the animals are still predominantly birds, there are other animals as well, including a love fox that will be my first project in this book. The drawings are uncolored block prints which have big, bold black lines.
Included on the inside of the front and back covers are full color thumbnails of all of the original artwork. The title of each design is listed both on the contents page at the beginning of the book as well as the design page itself. The contents page also gives the size of the original artwork, the medium in which it was done and also the date it was finished.
The designs are easy to color but with a heavy use of black which is very prominent due to the nature of block prints. I used to use my markers for this type of design but as I am unable (due to health reasons) to use alcohol or solvent based markers for an extended length of time), I will be using my Tombow water-based pens and my coloring pencils to color these designs. With coloring pencils, I have to take care to not color over the black as the pencils have a tendency to look gray on top of the heavy black.
This is what I experienced in coloring in this book and testing my coloring medium on the paper.
22 line drawing designs derived from the unpainted birds and animal block print artwork of Molly Hashmimoto
Designs are printed on one side of the page
Paper is heavyweight, 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 and have a distinct finished edge which acts as a frame and an ending point for coloring.
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
If I use any style of marker, I also make sure to use a blotter under my working page. I like card stock but a couple of sheets of heavyweight paper works well, too.
Gel pens and India ink pens do not bleed through the page. Some gel pens require slightly more drying time than usual.
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 the same and multiple colors well and could blend easily using a pencil style blending stick. As I mentioned previously, some colors look gray if they are used on top the heavy use of black in the designs.
Here are a few samples of the designs in this book, including the two pages of thumbnail color prints:
This is the second coloring book by Molly Hashimoto released by Pomegranate. While the animals are still predominantly birds, there are other animals as well, including a love fox that will be my first project in this book. The drawings are uncolored block prints which have big, bold black lines. 
