30 Japanese Woodblock style Designs printed one side of the page

Ukiyo-e: A Japanese Woodblock Coloring Book: A Unique Antistress Coloring Gift for Men, Women, Teenagers & Seniors with Samurai, Geishas, Dragons, … Relief, Mindful Meditation & Relaxation)

By: Papeterie Bleu

Rating: 5 of 5

I am a fan of Japanese art and have collected a few woodblock prints. This coloring book is a wonderful set of designs which capture the look and feel of my antique prints. I am so thrilled to have a fairly easy to color set of designs as other books that I own are very detailed and hard to color. This book has a nice level of detail but does not have tiny or intricate spots to color.

The designs range from female and male forms to birds, flowers, and fish. I know that I will color each picture in this book and will probably come back and buy another copy so I can do them over again in another colorway. The illustrations are by Ekaterina and I sincerely hope that she will continue in this series with new books in the future. I would love to see some designs with landscapes and seascapes (waves) in them.
This is now my third coloring book by Papeterie Bleu. It appears that having black line drawings on white with the back of the page in black with gray print is standard for this publisher. It is really interesting to work with and is only the second publisher I have come across who provides book in this manner. It also gives the white paper on the front of the page a kind of antique look which works extremely well with the idea of antique Japanese woodblock prints.
This is what I found while coloring in this book and testing the paper with my coloring medium:
30 Beautifully illustrated Japanese Woodblock print inspired designs
Printed one side of page
Paper is thin, white, slightly rough and non-perforated. The back of each page is black with a variety of quotes and designs in gray print.
Glue Binding
Designs do not merge into the binding and have a frame around the outer edge. Plenty of room to remove pages if you wish.
Book opens fairly flat for coloring by creasing the spine hard.
Alcohol-based markers bleed through the paper. You don’t see much more than a shadow at the back of the page (because of the black print) but you will need to be careful to use a blotter page so the page underneath does not get ruined by ink bleeding through.
Water-based markers spot through to the back of the page. Again, you can’t see it too clearly but I still recommend at blotter page with this medium.
Gel pens and India ink do not bleed through. If they leave shadows, it is hard to see through the black print.
Colored pencils work well with the rough texture of this paper. I did note that pencil style blender sticks did not work well. I found that using them smudged the black print of the design consistently. While I generally don’t test with wet blending medium, I did so for this book. I found that mineral spirits and other wet blending pens worked well and that petroleum jelly also worked well. No smudging but I would use a blotter page to be safe.
Otherwise, colored pencils did well with pigment lay down and layering with both the same color (for deeper pigment) and multiple colors. I tested both oil and wax-based pencils.