Arthur Rackham – Make your own art masterpiece
By: artist David Jones and selected by Daisy Seal
Rating: 5 of 5
This is one of the more recent releases in the series of “Make Your Own Art Masterpiece” coloring books from Flame Tree. The designs in this book are based on the artwork of famed illustrator Arthur Rackham. The artwork is based on a variety of his works, including: “Aesop’s Fables”, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” (a favorite of mine), a variety of fairy tales, Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes and more. The illustrations have converted beautifully and, while detailed, will be much fun to color.
There are 45 line drawing designs to color. The designs were chosen by Daisy Seal and were illustrated by David Jones. The detail of the subject matter of each design is on the opposite facing page. There is a thumbnail of a small portion of the design with some color showing.
The inside flaps at the front and back of the book have black and white line drawings which can be colored as well The flaps are quite smooth but will accept various forms of color medium. The inside of the actual cover is left white which is too bad as it could have been used as a coloring opportunity as well.
This is what I found in this coloring book
45 Designs based on artwork by famed artist Arthur Rackham
Designs are printed on one side of the page
Paper is light ivory, heavy weight, slightly rough and is perforated.
Sewn Binding. You can remove pages at the perforations if you wish but it will separate the designs from the describing thumbnails.
Book fairly easy to lay flat in the open position.
The designs do not merge into the binding area. The designs have framing lines at their outer edges so you don’t have to color up to and over the edges.
Alcohol based markers bleed through this paper.
India ink pens can leave slight shadows of color on the back of the page.
Water based markers and gel pens do not bleed through the paper.
Coloring pencils worked well. Both oil and wax based pencils worked well for providing good pigment. Though the paper is only slightly rough, I was able to layer the same color for deeper tones, layer multiple colors and to blend easily using a pencil style blending stick.
If you use a medium that bleeds through the paper, I suggest using a blotter page under your working page. I use card stock but heavy weight paper works well, too. This will keep ink from seeping through and marring the pages below.
Below are some design samples of illustrations in the coloring book:
This is one of the more recent releases in the series of “Make Your Own Art Masterpiece” coloring books from Flame Tree. The designs in this book are based on the artwork of famed illustrator Arthur Rackham. The artwork is based on a variety of his works, including: “Aesop’s Fables”, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” (a favorite of mine), a variety of fairy tales, Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes and more. The illustrations have converted beautifully and, while detailed, will be much fun to color. 
