Creative Haven Tropical Blooms Coloring Book (Adult Coloring)
By: Ruth Soffer
Rating: 4 of 5
This is my first floral coloring book by Ruth Soffer so these designs are all new to me. It is a coloring book of large tropical blossoms. On most of the designs, a single blossom or two take center stage. On a few, there is more detail. I grew up and spent most of my adult life in Southern California with many tropical flowers and had a lovely garden where I grew them. As I had family living in Hawaii, I also visited the Islands often. A lot of these flowers remind me of those years.
I was especially pleased to see that the artist included the name of each flower and, interestingly, it was printed on the bound side of the perforations. That way, if you want to remove the page, you don’t have printing on it.
What I didn’t like was that the designs were printed without a frame line at the outer edges. It makes it very difficult to color as unfinished elements simply stop with about a half inch of white margin on all sides. It is also strange as Creative Haven generally has framing lines. What’s also strange is that the two sample designs included in the book (I’ll include them in the video and the photos I post), do have framing lines but their line drawing counterparts do not. As this effects almost every designs to some extent, I dropped my rating to a 4.
The flowers included in the book are (by commonly known name): Hawaiian clermontia, Milkweed, Freesia, Velvetleaf, Hawaiian loosestrife, Heliconia, New South Wales waratah, Miltonia Orchid, Bromeliad, Dahlia, Gladiola, African Daisy, African violet, Tropical water lily, Plumeria, Anthurium, Waimea Canyon nehe, Hibiscus, Manuka, Hawaiian hoawa, Flame lily, Tahian gardenia, Camellia, Hawaiian geranium, Rhododendron, Bleeding heart, Rain lily, Treasure flower, Shell ginger, African tulip and bat flower.
This is what I found while coloring in this book and testing the paper with my coloring medium.
31 Tropical Flower designs by Ruth Soffer
The designs are printed one side of the page
Paper is the usual Creative Haven quality: white, medium weight, slightly smooth and has perforated pages. I’ve noticed that some Creative Haven books have slightly rougher paper than others. This is one of the ones that is slightly more smooth.
Glue Binding but with perforated pages so removing a page is fairly simple.
The designs stop well before the perforations and are cut off abruptly on all four sides, leaving elements unfinished.
Alcohol-based markers bleed through this paper
Water-based markers bleed through in spots and show colorful shadows on the back of the page
Gel pens and India ink pens leave shadows of color on the back of the page. India ink pens can bleed through when I apply more than one layer of ink.
Coloring pencils work well with this paper. I was able to get good color, layer the same color and multiple colors and blend easily using a pencil style blender. I tested both oil and wax-based pencils with similar results. Hard lead pencils, like Verithins, leave dents on the back of the page.
I suggest either removing pages from the book to color or using a blotter page under your working page. I like card stock as it keeps ink from seeping through and damaging the pages below.