iiiiReader Book Reviews

This is an adult coloring book filled mandala-type designs. The designs are all supplied by GMC Designs/Shutterstock, Inc. I don’t know if that means there are various designers within those companies or not, but there isn’t a specific artist mentioned.

There are 24 different designs. Usually, when I have a color book of mandalas, there is a single, circular image on the page. On these, in most cases, the image is more of a montage of overlaying itself and filling the page. It is very pretty and should be a lot of fun to color.

The paper weight is nice and heavy very much a feeling of premium grade paper. The designs are printed on one side of the page (with the back side blank.) The pages are all micro-perforated so removing them from the book will be easy. The print quality of the design is excellent. There are parts of the designs which are rather intricate.
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Floral designs abound in this new book book by Leisure Arts. The pages are filled with stylized flowers and even include a few birds and garden bugs. The designs are all supplied by GMC Designs/Shutterstock, Inc. I don’t know if that means there are various designers within those companies or not, but there isn’t a specific artist mentioned.

There are 24 different designs. I am home gardener who grows both flowers and vegetables, so this book is one that is very appealing to me. There are orchids, fuchsias, poppies, sunflowers, and many others, including what look like some gorgeous fantasy flowers.
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This coloring book is a large variety of designs. Many show a heavy influence from the mid-century modern period and others are intricate and stylized abstracts which should be really fun to color with a wide variety of media and colors. I am especially drawn to the mid-century as I lived in a California 1950’s home for many years which was definitely in a similar style.

In this book, I believe that we are seeing a sampling of artist Mark Cesarik’s style rather than a specific subject matter. Because of that, the designs vary widely from page to page. Thankfully, the very cool coverart work is included in the book. That is always a huge plus for me. There is also a design which includes a montage of modern chairs that has my fingers itching to start coloring.
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This is a fun set of Christmas mandala designs that will give me hours of coloring fun. The book is a reprint of an earlier book by Dover. Apparently, the reprint was done to provide the colorist with a single-sided version of the book so we can color each and every page without fear of ink leaching through and damaging the design on the backside of the page. The designs are by artist Marty Noble who is an artist whose work I really enjoy and whose books I am always eager to color.

Some of the designs are have intricate parts and for those, I will probably have to use my magnifying lamp. For the vast majority of this book, I don’t think my magnifier will be necessary. I use a true color bulb in my lamp which helps me immensely while I am making color choices for my use.

While the designs are all based on mandalas, the subject of each is very different there are Santas, angels, snowmen, candles, poinsettias, Christmas trees and much, much more.
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Yoga Kitties by Dawn Lewis is filled with 30 adorable designs of kitties in yoga poses. The lines of the designs are darker and thicker than those of most other color books I have had in the past but it looks like it will make it easier to use really bold colors to enhance them.

The kitties are so cute as they attempt many different poses. The designs have a fairly high level of detail and the cats are portrayed in more of a human form, such as standing on two feet and having body shapes more consistent with a person than with a cat. One of my favorite designs in the book (and there are many) is Heron Pose which actually features a human and a cat. There is a high level of detail and something about the image (perhaps the swirls in the woman’s hair) reminds me of Gustav Klmit artwork.
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