The Magic of Christmas (50 Adult Coloring Book Designs, Doubled on the Back of Each Sheet): Cubs, Bears, Dogs, Cats, Christmas Trees, Toys, Santa’s … Holiday Spirit Experience) (Volume 1)
By: Leo Art Gibson
Rating: 4 of 5
The interesting difference with this book is that the same design is printed on both front and page of the page. That way you can color the same designs twice or you can treat the page like a single page design and ignore the back of the page. It works well for both right and left hand colorists as you don’t have to work over the hump of the binding. Just choose which page works best for your writing hand and color that one.
For me, I will use the book as a one-sided design book. My coloring medium of choice will either bleed through or leave dents on the back of the page. Because of that, the back of the page won’t be in good enough shape (due to the them CreateSpace paper) to be useful.
The designs are detailed with lots of elements to color. Some of the designs have intricate and small areas to color. These may require small nib pens/markers and thin, sharp pencil points for coloring. Because of this, I don’t recommend this coloring book to any one who has fine motor or vision issues.
This is what I discovered while coloring in this book and testing my coloring medium on the paper:
51 Traditional Christmas Designs
The same design is printed on both front and back of the page
Paper is typical inexpensive quality by CreateSpace printing: white, thin, slightly rough and non-perforated.
The designs merge into the binding area. If you cut your pages out, you will lose part of the design.
Glue Binding
Alcohol-based markers bleed through the page quickly.
Water-based markers bleed through in spots.
Gel pens and India ink pens leave shadows on back of the page. India ink can bleed through if you apply heavily or multiple coats.
Coloring Pencils work well with this paper. I found that I could layers the same color for deeper pigment or multiple colors and I could blend easily using a blending stick. I tested both oil and wax based pencils. I also found that hard lead pencils leave dents through the paper.
I like to use a blotter when working in the book. I use a page of card stock or several sheets of heavyweight paper under my working page. It keeps seeping ink and marring dents from ruining the pages below.