The Selection Coloring Book
By: Kiera Cass
Rating: 5 of 5
I really like the concept of coloring books which bring novels and series of novels to life for those who like to color. The Selection Coloring Book is a lovely example of beautiful illustrations which flesh out a series of books, in this case by Kiera Cass. It includes five of the six books in the series. The only one I could not find was Happily Ever After.
The books are included as chapters: The Selection, The Elite, The One, The Heir, and, finally, The Crown. I appreciate that only a few pictures from each book could be included but was really happy to see my favorite characters and scenes represented.
My only small nit with the book is the number of illustrated banner pages that are included. While I like to have a few in a coloring book of this nature, the split between character designs and banner pages is even at 20 each. My preference would have been to have at least five more character designs for a 25/15 split. I don’t consider this small nit to rise to the level of removing a star from the rating, it would just have been my preference.
In addition to these 40 pages which are black line drawings on white background, there are five chapter heading pages which are black background with white words and designs. I think that all of the illustrations: characters (by Sandra Suy) and lettering by Martina Flor are beautifully drawn. I will have a lot of fun coloring in this book and will re-read my books as I go along.
This is what I experienced while coloring in this book and testing the paper with my coloring medium:
45 Design pages including 20 character designs, 20 banner designs, and 5 chapter heading pages (plus title and intro page designs) from the series The Selection
Printed on one side of the page
Paper is white, medium weight, somewhat smooth (but still good tooth), and perforated
Glue Binding
Many designs spread past the micro-perforations; however, if you choose to remove pages, nothing integral to the design will be lost.
The book opens fairly flat for coloring though I had to heavily crease (break) the spine.
Alcohol-based markers bleed through this paper rapidly. If I were to use this medium, I would put a blotter page below my working page to keep seeping ink from ruining the design below. I prefer card stock but several sheets of heavyweight paper works well, too. You can also remove pages from the book before coloring. I prefer not to do so to keep the continuity of the series intact.
Water-based markers, India ink pens and gel pens did not bleed through but they did leave shadows on the back of the page. As the book is printed on one side of the page, this didn’t trouble me.
Colored pencils worked well with this paper. While it is somewhat smooth, it still has sufficient tooth (roughness) to grip pigment well. I tested both oil and wax based pencils and liked both with this paper. I was able to get deep pigment with multiple layers of the same color. I was also able to layer multiple colors well and to easily blend colors using a pencil style blending stick.