100 coloring designs by Debi Hron in smaller format coloring book printed one side of the page

Wells Street by Lang Simply Grateful Adult Coloring Book by Debi Hron, 7.375 x 9.25 inches (6093004)

By: Wells St. by LANG

Rating: 5 of 5

I picked this book up thinking that it would be different from the other Lang coloring book by Debi Hron, Cheerful Journey. Turns out the difference is the size of the designs, the paper used, and possibly some slight differences in cropping. While it is nice to have two sizes of books (this one, Simply Grateful, is the smaller of the two), I probably would not have bought it if I had known that it did not include different artwork.

I’ve enjoyed Ms. Hron’s artwork over years and the designs in this book are indicative of those I have found in household goods, calendars, Christmas cards and more. There are birds, sunflowers, snowmen, scarecrows, and my favorites, her cute cats.
The designs span through a variety of seasons. Some of them have sayings and quotes and others are solely design focused. They designs appear to be hand-drawn with the wonderful look that one expects from such.
If I had to make a choice between the two books, I would certainly choose Cheerful Journey due to the size of the book, the spiral binding, the hard cover and the better grade of paper used. That doesn’t detract from my review of this book, just a statement of my preference. Judging this book on its own merits, I really like it.
This is what I found while coloring in this book and testing my coloring medium on the paper:
100 Design pages featuring hand-drawn artwork by Debi Hron featuring many of her design series
Designs are printed on one side of the page
Paper is fairly thin, white, slightly rough and perforated
Most designs do cross over the perforations and disappear into the binding. However, if you remove pages from the book, you will probably not lose anything essential to the design.
Glue Bound
Book is approximately 9.75 x 7.25 x .5 inches. The unbound corners of the book are slightly rounded.
Book can be opened fairly flat for coloring but you must heavily crease or break the spine to do so.
Alcohol-based markers bleed through this paper readily.
Water-based markers, gel pens and India ink pens leave colorful shadows on the back of the page. Heavy use of markers and ink pens can cause them to bleed through in spots.
Colored pencils worked well with this paper. It has a good tooth and allowed for applying layers of the same color to get rich pigment. I could also layer multiple colors well and I could blend both oil and wax based pencils easily with a pencil style blending stick. Hard lead pencils can leave dents through the page.
I suggest using a blotter page, such as card stock, below your working page that or remove pages before coloring. This is keep seeping ink and marring dents from damaging the pages below.