31 Sea Life Designs with a variety of sea creatures and plants printed on one side of black background page

Creative Haven Sea Life Wonders Coloring Book: Amazing Designs on a Dramatic Black Background (Adult Coloring)

By: Lindsey Boylan

Rating: 5 of 5

I own a few of Lindsey Boylan’s Creative Haven coloring books. She is one of the first in this line to have designs with black printed backgrounds. By doing this, the colors you use pop off the page against the dark color. I find that I like to use bright colors, even neon, as well as pastel to get the most contrast I can with the black.

The designs are complex with detailed elements. In some cases, I think I will need to use smaller nib pens to color in the smaller spaces. My preference with this type of background is to use pens or markers as my colored pencils can leave lighter marks on the black if I happen to color over the edge. I’ve found that the wetter mediums are more forgiving if I cross into the black background.
There are a wide range of sea creatures and plants with the doodle style elements that allow me to experiment with color and have fun creating my own vision of sea life.
This is what I saw while coloring in this book and testing the paper with my coloring medium:
31 Sea Life designs including above and below the ocean
The designs are printed one side of the page
Paper is the usual Creative Haven quality: white (though printed with a black background), medium weight, slightly smooth and has perforated pages.
Glue Binding but with perforated pages so removing a page is fairly simple.
The designs cross slightly over the perforations (nothing essential lost if you remove the pages from the book)
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.