iiiiReader Book Reviews

Charley Harper: 50 Drawings, Coloring Book

By: Charley Harper

Rating: 5 of 5

This is a wonderful hardback coloring book filled with 50 pages of designs of artwork by Charley Harper. I first saw Mr. Harper’s work re-created in cross stitch a number of years ago. I had such fun with those projects, that I looked into his work generally and discovered a mid-century modernist whose work was both beautiful and whimsical at the same time. Since then, I’ve enjoyed his work in prints, calendars, and more. It’s become tradition in my house for me to have a Charley Harper calendar hung in my pantry each year. I’ve also enjoyed the work of his wife, Edie Harper as well.

The late Mr. Harper’s work in this coloring book revolves around animals which are created with his attention to clean lines. While I have used to seeing his work with individual animals, I was surprised to find detailed and intricate studies of entire ecosystems in these designs. It creates a really nice mix for me to color with some designs being easier to color and others taking considerably more thought and time.

In creating these designs, the artists at the publishing company hand traced the outlines of Mr. Harper’s artwork. The designs in the book are thus is an exact duplication of the original artwork. Included in the book are also numbered color thumbnails of the original art printed on high gloss pages. Also included is a table of contents which provides the names for each of the designs. I may decide to follow Mr. Harper’s lead or I may choose to put my own spin on some of his designs. There are so many to choose from, I can easily do both.

This is what I discovered while coloring in this book and using my coloring medium to test the pages:

50 Designs based on the exact artwork of Charley Harper plus title page, intro page and Contents page have areas you can color as well.

Printed on one side of the page

Paper is heavyweight, white, slightly smooth, and non-perforate

Sewn Binding with a thin glossy hard back cover

Includes color thumbnails of the original artwork

The designs include framing lines around the outer edge

There is enough room to remove a page if you wish to do so. I won’t but, instead, will use the book as a coffee table book both while I am coloring it and when it is finished.

Alcohol-based markers bleed through this paper quite readily

Water-based markers can spot through. The exception was my Tombow brush ends did not spot through even with dark and bright colors.

Gel pens and India ink pens did not bleed through but some gel pens took much longer to dry than usual.

Colored pencils worked well with this paper. I tested both oil and wax based in several brands. I was able to get light pigment as well as heavy (with multiple layers) and to layer colors and blend well using a pencil style blending stick. My hard lead pencils were good color as well with crisp lines and did not dent through the page.

Chalk It Up To Grace: A Chalkboard Coloring Book of Removable Wall Art Prints, Perfect With Colored Pencils and Markers

By: Paige Tate Select

Rating: 5 of 5

Chalk It Up To Grace is the latest premium edition Christian coloring book by Paige Tate & Co. While I have a number of the earlier books, this is the first coloring book I have by artist Shannon Roberts. Ms. Roberts style is both elegant and fun at the same time. She provides an insight into her spiritual inspiration as a Christian in her biography at the back of the book. It’s always wonderful to hear about what God has been doing in the lives of other believers. The designs in this book are a mixture of inspirational Scripture and Christian sayings along with lovely designs that surround the words and bring attention to them.

The book has 30 full page designs and an additional 14 designs which are printed two to a page. The smaller designs are scaled down versions of some of the full page designs. The pages are mostly black with the coloring elements in white. The way the pages are printed is black ink on white paper. While the pages are perforated, you will still have to cut the smaller designs along the cutting lines provided if you wish to remove them from the book. The larger prints will fit into an 8 x 10 inch frame and the smaller ones will fit well in a 5 x 7 frame.

This book, as with the other premium edition books, is printed on a heavyweight paper that is much more substantial than the paper used in this publishers regular coloring books. The book is approximately 10 x 8.5 inches with a beautiful black cover with gold foil accents and pretty partially colored illustrations (and yes, the cover art is the very first page in the book and serves double purpose as a title page and a coloring designs.)

Chalk-style coloring is a fun new way of coloring designs. The black background makes the colors you use pop, especially if you use light or fluorescent colors in your work. Some dark colors can end up a little too dark, so you may want to check your colors to see how they work on black before committing to them. I am using a variety of mediums for each design including alcohol and water-based markers, gel pens, and colored pencils.

This is the overview of what I experienced while coloring in this book and testing my various coloring mediums on the page:

30 Large Format and 14 Small Format Scripture/Saying Based Designs in for a total of 44 coloring opportunities

Printed on one side of perforated, black background, slightly rough heavyweight paper

Designs do not merge past the perforations

Glue Binding

Book can open to fairly flat position though I removed my pages from the book for coloring

Alcohol-based markers bleed through the paper

Water-based markers left shadows of color on the back of the page

Gel pens and India ink pens left indistinct shadows on the back of the page.

Coloring pencils work well with the paper. I tested a variety of both wax and oil based pencils and had good results with all of them for color, layering, and blending. I use a pencil style blending stick with for my tests. My hard lead pencils provided good color and did not dent the back of the page.

Leafy Animals: Midnight Edition: A Beautiful Adult Coloring Book with 55 Intricate Animals to Color on Black Paper

By: James Alexander

Rating: 5 of 5

This is the first coloring book that I have purchased that has solid black pages. I have a number of midnight or chalkstyle books but they are all black ink printed on white paper. With Leafy Animals, the page is a deep black, both front and back, with white ink making up the designs. This process makes the black very true and seems to make the colored design pop even more. I’m using light colors and fluorescent tones to make my projects stand out from the black base. The paper is still the thin, slightly rough paper one can expect from CreateSpace published books.

There are 55 different animal designs of all sorts. The animals are presented in full body with leaves either adorning them or making up the body of the animal. Included are mammals, fish and sea creatures, insects, reptiles, and birds. The designs are simple in the sense that it is just the creature on black background with no extra design. The designs, while detailed, are not overly intricate.

The book is published by CreateSpace and purports to be the first coloring book printed on black paper. I would think that the paper style would become an option for other CreateSpace independent artists and we will see more of it. That’s great with me as I am enjoying the process of coloring on this style of paper. With the exception of colored pencils, it is very forgiving if you color outside of the lines. Colored pencils can overlay the black and give it a whitish, kind of waxy, look.

Forest Rhapsody

By: Yu Han Chen

Rating: 5 of 5

I own a number of the coloring books which have been released by Dream State Studio. This recent one is illustrated by artist JuJu (Yu Han Chen) who has a lovely and delicate touch with her design work. What I really appreciate about this particular book (versus the others by this group) is that the design are on a larger scale. It makes it much easier to color albeit the designs are still very detailed and have intricate spots to color.

There are many types of animals in this book, including: deer, owl, lion, rabbit, wolf, seahorse (which doesn’t actually go with the forest theme but is gorgeous), birds, tiger, reptiles and much more. There is also a visual thumbnail table of contents at the beginning of the book to assist you in finding which design to color next. The designs are printed on the right on side of the page and on the opposite side, there is a short commentary about the design. The words are quite poetic and evoke the scene that the artist had in mind in creating it.

This is what I discovered in coloring in this book and by testing my coloring medium on the typical CreateSpace paper:

30 Beautiful and Intricate Animals designs with some doodle styling

Printed on one side of the page

Paper is typical of this publisher. It is thin, white, slightly rough and non-perforated.

Glue Bound

Some designs merge into the binding area. You may lose some portion of the design if you remove it from the book.

Alcohol and water-based markers bleed through this paper. Alcohol flows through quickly while water-based comes through in spots.

Gel pens and India ink pens leave shadows of color on the back of the page. I have had India ink spot through on the paper when I use layers of color or blend multiple colors together.

Colored pencils work well with both oil and wax based providing good color. I can layer and blend well with both as well. Hard lead pencils can dent through on this paper to the page below.

I use and suggest the use of a heavyweight blotter page below your working page. That will keep any ink or dents from marring the designs below.

Art Nouveau Animals & Flowers Coloring Book for Adults

By: Happy Coloring

Rating: 5 of 5

This is my third coloring book by Juliana Emerson. The previous two focused fairly exclusively on animals (Cute Cats and Creative Animals.) In this coloring book, Ms. Emerson shows a broader range of her talents by showcasing animals and flowers and the occasional young lady or fairy in the midst of an Art Nouveau inspired backdrop. While the designs are not strictly Art Nouveau in nature they certainly are a good modern interpretation of the style.

There are 30 designs in this coloring book with many fun opportunities to color. The designs are detailed but not overly intricate. I don’t think I will need to rely on special small nib pens and sharp point pencils to color in this book.

An interesting technique that I noticed in these designs is that the centerpiece (the animal, flower or maiden) are done in a slightly bolder and darker line than the rest of the design. It helps give the illusion of a slightly 3D effect with that portion of the design standing out.

Here is what I experienced in coloring in this book and testing my coloring medium on the paper:

30 Art Nouveau inspired designs featuring Animals, Flowers, and Females

Printed on one side of the page

Paper is typical of CreateSpace. It is thin, white, slightly rough, and non-perforated

Glue Bound

Plenty of room to remove designs from the book without loss of design. Each design has a framing line around it for ease of coloring and giving a more finished look to your project.

Alcohol and water-based markers bleed through this paper to some extent.

Gel pens and India ink pens leave colorful shadows on the back of the page. If used heavily, the India ink pens can slightly bleed through in spots.

Colored Pencils work well with this slightly rough paper. There is enough tooth to the paper to layer pigment from light to heavy. Both oil and wax pencils can be layered and blended as well. I use a pencil style blender stick for my testing purposes.

To the Moon: The Tallest Coloring Book in the World

By: Sarah Yoon

Rating: 5 of 5

I recently purchased this artist’s newly released book To the Ocean Deep which is made similarly to this book but with obvious differences in subject. My husband wanted to take turns coloring in it with me so we decided to alternate pages within the book. That left one of us without a fun cartoon style color book to every other week. I then found Ms. Yoon’s first coloring book To the Moon and decided to pick it up and now we plan to alternate each of the books. It is a fun way to tackle this large a project and it is keeping our interest high as we look at what the other has done the week before.

In this book, the background is pre-colored in a white to light blue to deeper blue as you head further into space. The actual designs are black lines on white. I found that the pages are a little to maneuver unless you have a really big area in which you color. I found that folding the pages the opposite direction from they way they came also helped keep the fold-out manageable.

The design concept is a long tower that reaches from a house on Earth up through the atmosphere into space and finally ends at the Moon. There is even a small portion of the design that goes underground on Earth as well. There are towers and castles and trees and all sorts of creatures and machinery as you make your way up to the moon. As with my other book by this artist, the drawings remind me of old Mad magazine cartoons I read as a child. It is fun to color and discover all the zany bits that are hidden at first glance.

This is what I experienced while coloring in this book and testing my various coloring medium on the paper.

15 page continuous fold-out cartoon Earth to space to Moon theme designs

Printed on one side of the page

Paper is heavyweight, lightly smooth, filled background, non-perforated. The last page (at the Moon) is glued to the cardboard backing while the other 14 pages fold out.

Cover (front and back) is a lightweight cardboard.

Alcohol-based markers seep through the paper

Water-based markers, India ink artist pens and gel pens did not seep through the paper

Colored pencils worked well with this paper. I was able to get good color, layer, and blend well with both oil and wax based pencils.

‘Color Therapy’ Anti Stress Adult Coloring Books, 80 Different Designs on each sheet, Wire Bound Sketchbook, 11.7″ X 8.9″ X 0.6″

By: Pinkfoot

Rating: 5 of 5

Color Therapy is a coloring book printed on thin card stock like paper. The designs are mostly of flowers and other plants but a few are of buildings or abstract patterns to color. The book contains 80 designs which are printed on both sides of the page.

The book is presented in landscape or horizontal format with a spiral binding at the top. A number of the designs actually extend into the spiral area and that makes those difficult to color as you need to maneuver into the spirals themselves.

The book is a slightly larger format for books in the US but as the copy I purchased was published outside of the US, it isn’t too surprising. The pages are well printed and the designs are imaginative and very well done.

This is what I experienced while coloring in this book and checking the paper with my color medium:

80 Mostly Floral Designs

Printed on both sides of the page

Paper is lightweight card stock, white, slightly rough, and non-perforated

Spiral bound at top of the page

Designs merge into the spiral binding area

Opens flat easily for coloring

Alcohol and water-based markers bleed through to some extent

India Ink pens leave a colorful shadow on the back of the page

Gel pens do not bleed through the paper

Colored Pencils worked well. I used both oil and wax based to test an was able to get good color, blend and layer well. Hard lead pencils do not dent through the paper

Harry Potter Magical Artifacts Coloring Book

By: Scholastic

Rating: 5 of 5

Attached to this review will be a silent flip-through of the entire coloring book so you can make an informed decision as to whether or not it will work for you. I will also include sample photos of a few of the pages in the book.

Rather than discuss how this is like or different from the books and/or movie series, I will discuss only how I feel about it as an adult coloring book. There are, once again, color image pages at the back of the book in case you wish to stay true to the original colors.

As with the first three books in this series, there is a team of illustrators involved with the designs in this book. It seems like the list is much larger this time and perhaps that is why there is even a less cohesive feel to this book than in the prior three. It is easy to see the differences in design styles and the feel is much more cartoon-like than in the previous books. That may be due, in large part, to the subject matter.

Dealing with the artifacts may lend itself to less realistic style drawing but I think that some of the images might have been improved upon but on the whole, I may fairly pleased with the book. There are some designs that are just a tad more detailed than simple line drawings while there are also many which involve extremely small and intricate elements. These will probably take sharp pointed pencils or ultra-fine nibs to color.

I am pleased that, as with the second and third books, there are less designs with heavy black space. I consider this change from the first book to be a huge improvement and am happy with my design options apart from printing issues (see below.) Once again, they have included glossy pages at the end of the book. I will use them as I did the first time around, as a reminder of the actual colors of the characters and scenes. I don’t necessarily use those colors but it is nice to have a reminder handy.

I will provide details on the physical coloring book below but here is a quick overview of what I found:

78 Pages of Harry Potter Designs (not including title page)

Designs are printed on both sides of the page

Paper is heavyweight, cream paper that is slightly rough and non-perforated

Designs merge into binding

Designs spread across two pages

Glue Binding

Alcohol based markers bleed through page

Water-based markers leave slight shadows of color on back of page though Tombow brush end markers did the best with most colors not leaving any shadows if applied lightly.

India Ink pens do not bleed through

Gel pens leave a slight shadow on back of page

Coloring Pencils work well with this paper. It is rough enough to provide good tooth to hold the pigment. I got good results with both oil and wax based pencils for coloring, blending, and layering.

The book is printed on both sides of off-white (almost cream) heavyweight and non-perforated paper. Only a few of the designs are printed across two pages and merge into the binding (which is glued rather than sewn.) I did a count and this is what I came up with: 68 one page designs, 7 of which are wallpaper repeating patterns; 5 designs spread across two pages but only one of them had elements of importance in the binding area while 2 of them were wallpaper style patterns.

In my copy, the images on the two page designs are mixed as far as lining up. Three of the designs do fairly well and two do not.

My first book in this series had a very weird kind of musty odor. I’m happy to say that the final three books in this series, including this one, did not have the offensive odor I encountered in the first book. I hope this is true for everyone who buys this coloring book.

I will use coloring pencils and India ink pens primarily for this book. If I use other mediums, I will do so knowing that it will ruin the design on the back of the page. I do this when I don’t really care that much for the backside of the page design. While using markers, I recommend the use of a blotter page (heavy weight paper or several sheets or regular paper) under the working page to keep the ink from seeping further.

Harry Potter Magical Creatures Postcard Coloring Book

By: Scholastic

Rating: 5 of 5

I’ll include a silent flip-through video as well as a few sample photos so you can see if this set of postcards will work for you.

Once again, Scholastic has released a set of postcards based on a Harry Potter coloring book. In this case, the subject is Magical Creatures which was the second coloring book in the series. Postcards are inherently a little more difficult to work on as everything is scaled so much smaller than in a book. I’ve found that if I use small nib gel pens, ultra-fine point markers, and very sharp and hard pencils, I have an easier time getting into all the small and intricate details.

The mix of designs in the postcards are fairly good for my taste. I enjoy coloring the small details and should enjoy coloring these to give to all the Harry Potter fans in my family. I will probably mount these on folded cards and either frame them or give them as cards versus sending them through the mail as postcards. That is my personal preference but these should hold up well as postcards in use provided you use waterproof medium so that rain and moisture won’t cause havoc with your coloring.

Here is a brief overview of what I found in this set of postcards:

20 Different Harry Potter Postcards with black and white artwork from Harry Potter Magical Creatures Coloring Book

Printed on one side of heavy weight, slick, white card stock

Address and stamp areas are defined and printed on the back of the card

Postcards are glue bound but can easily be removed from the booklet without design loss

Alcohol and water-based markers, India ink and gel pens do not bleed through the card stock.

Gel pens take a much longer time to dry than usual.

Colored pencils are mixed. I can get fairly good color from both oil and water based pencils but layering and blending don’t work as well (probably due to the very slick surface of the card.)

Mystical Cats in Secret Places: A Cat Lover’s Coloring Book

By: Honoel

Rating: 5 of 5

This is a wonderful coloring book for anyone who loves cats or simply loves to color cats. The artwork is beautifully drawn by Honoel A. Ibardolaza. This is a new artist for me but I am sure to buy any other coloring books that the artist releases. The cat designs in the book are fun to look at and even more fun to color. There are simply so many, it is hard to choose where to start (though I started with what I call the Cinderella cat.)

The artwork is reminiscent of that of Marjorie Sarnat’s Creative Cats but with even more detail if you can imagine it. That there are 80 designs to color in this book makes it a real bargain. The only draw back is that the designs are printed on both sides of the page and that limits me as far as what I want to use to color the designs. The easy solution is to purchase another copy of the book and I am giving a lot of thought to that as the price is so good for the amount that is included.

The designs are definitely intricate and many have small details. It might not be the best choice of coloring books for anyone who has vision or fine motor issues but if you can color in tiny spots, it is a beautiful book to add to your cat coloring book library.

I’ve had cats as pets for many years but over the last year, the last of my very senior cats have passed away. For now, coloring cats will be my way of remembering my little friends. This book has so many different cats, its easy for me to see my little ones in their faces and attitudes.

This is what I discovered while coloring in this book and testing the paper for coloring medium:

80 Imaginative Cat Designs

Printed on both sides of the page

Paper is heavyweight, white, slightly smooth and non-perforated

Glue Bound

Only 2 Designs merge into the binding area; none spread across two pages

Alcohol-based markers bleed through this paper

Water-based markers, except for Tombow brush end markers, can leave spots on the back of the page. The spots are small but you can see them on the other design.

Gel pens and India ink pens do not bleed through the page.

Colored pencils work well with the paper. Both oil and wax based pencils had good color and could layer and blend well with a pencil style blending stick.