Tenderful Enchantments
By: Klara Markova
Rating: 5 of 5
In addition to her fun illustrations, the book is very well made, It has a great hard cover and a lay-flat style binding which means you do not have to break the spine to color. As with her first book, I received a cute bookmark which can be colored as well.
Part of Ms. Markova’s style is the prominent use of shading in many of the designs. The book is not grayscale but it has more shading than most other books I own. The designs include animals, elves/fairies, imaginative forest houses and lots of other fun surprises.
While most of the designs are printed on one side of the page (with several cute little sketches that repeat throughout the book on the reverse side of the page), there are three designs which span across two pages. The artist made sure to have the backside of each of these pages contain the little sketches, so using a bleed through medium will not ruin another design. The items which cross over the binding are minimal and, in my copy, the pages line up excellently.
This is what I found while coloring in this book and testing my coloring medium on the paper:
Adorable and original hand-drawn artwork. There is also an extra page of cut out elements
Printed on one side of the page with a small, repeated designs on the back of the page
Paper is heavy weight, light ivory, smooth, and non-perforated
Sewn, lay-flat binding with a hard cover
Most designs merge into the binding but are not as difficult to color due to the type of binding utilized
Alcohol-based markers bleed through the page. If you use this medium, I suggest using a blotter page to keep ink from seeping through. I use card stock but a couple of pages of paper should work as well.
Water-based markers, India ink pens and gel pens do not bleed through the page. Some do leave light, colorful shadows on the back of the page.
Colored pencils worked well with this paper. I tested both oil and wax based pencils. While the paper is smooth to the touch, it still had enough tooth to get good pigment. I could layer the same color for deeper color, layer multiple colors and blend using a blending stick. I’ve found that using a liquid blending medium works very well, too.