iiiiReader Book Reviews

This is my first floral coloring book by Ruth Soffer so these designs are all new to me. It is a coloring book of large tropical blossoms. On most of the designs, a single blossom or two take center stage. On a few, there is more detail. I grew up and spent most of my adult life in Southern California with many tropical flowers and had a lovely garden where I grew them. As I had family living in Hawaii, I also visited the Islands often. A lot of these flowers remind me of those years.

I was especially pleased to see that the artist included the name of each flower and, interestingly, it was printed on the bound side of the perforations. That way, if you want to remove the page, you don’t have printing on it.

What I didn’t like was that the designs were printed without a frame line at the outer edges. It makes it very difficult to color as unfinished elements simply stop with about a half inch of white margin on all sides. It is also strange as Creative Haven generally has framing lines. What’s also strange is that the two sample designs included in the book (I’ll include them in the photos I post), do have framing lines but their line drawing counterparts do not. As this effects almost every designs to some extent, I dropped my rating to a 4.

The flowers included in the book are (by commonly known name): Hawaiian clermontia, Milkweed, Freesia, Velvetleaf, Hawaiian loosestrife, Heliconia, New South Wales waratah, Miltonia Orchid, Bromeliad, Dahlia, Gladiola, African Daisy, African violet, Tropical water lily, Plumeria, Anthurium, Waimea Canyon nehe, Hibiscus, Manuka, Hawaiian hoawa, Flame lily, Tahian gardenia, Camellia, Hawaiian geranium, Rhododendron, Bleeding heart, Rain lily, Treasure flower, Shell ginger, African tulip and bat flower.

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I was surprised at how well this Lang coloring book is constructed; however, I was not surprised at all by how cute the designs were. I have seen Susan Winget’s designs in household goods and needlework for years and was really happy to find a coloring book filled to the brim with her designs.

The book is called Doodle House and it appears to be a glimpse at Ms. Winget’s sketchbook. The designs are hand-drawn and have the charming less than perfect look I expect from hand-drawn. I think that it makes coloring them more interesting and I am enjoying this book quite a bit.

Two things that I really like about the construction of the book are the spiral binding and the hard covers. The binding makes it easy to open the book to a flat position for coloring. It also makes it easy for leftys to color with the same easy as rightys. The hardcover gives a good flat surface for coloring on the go.

There are many designs with sayings as well as birds, animals and flowers. While it is not a book dedicated to the natural world, many of the designs lean that way. The designs are quite detailed but not what I would call intricate with tiny spots to color. As I mentioned previously, the hand-drawn nature of the artwork does show less than perfect. There are disconnected lines, a bit of uneven spacing, and even lines of varying thickness. It is that which gives it the sketchbook quality.

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This is my first floral books by Nathaniel Wake publishing. It is definitely an interesting take on flowers and some fantasy creatures. As with many Nathaniel Wake designs, many of the images seem to be slightly menacing. In some designs, I’m reminded of Audrey II in “Little Shop of Horrors.” It’s not what I generally look for in a floral coloring book but it is fairly fun change of pace.

The designs have detailed areas but do not have full scale backgrounds. Because of this, I don’t find it a difficult book to color in.

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This is the first coloring book I have based on Little Red Riding Hood. It covers the story from beginning to end (though leaving out the most frightening scenes.) I like that the artist used some discretion and substituted in pepper and sneezing for how Grandma gets back out. I also like that the wolf seems so mild at first (very friendly looking) and his wolf demeanor changes when he gets to Grandmas.

It will be a lot of fun to color in this book. I especially like getting two copies of each design in this book (25 different designs but two copies each) as I can share with my grandchildren when they are ready to color something this detailed.

The designs are quite detailed and some of them contain what I consider intricate and small elements to color. I found that my ultra-fine points, brush points and small nib gel pens worked well as did my colored pencils when sharped to fine points. Crayons would be much more difficult to work with unless you can sharpen them to a small point.

While you can have access to .PDFs when you purchase this book, my review is based on the book as it is received from CreateSpace. That way you will know what the pages look like and how they accept color. I like that the publisher provides the digital version as well so you can choose the paper you wish to use and/or to color the pictures as many times as you choose.

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I own several of Thaneeya McArdle’s coloring books, including one called “Dapper Animals”. In this new book, Ms. McArdle goes to the other end of the fashion spectrum and gives us “Hippie Animals”. While most fall firmly in the category of Hippie, I think a few cross over into the more modern category of Hipsters. In any case, they are cute and are extremely fun to color. It’s time to pull out your psychedelic colors and make a groovy rainbow out of their outfits. There are love beads, bell bottoms, and granny glasses. The peace symbols and the flower headbands remind me of my older sisters during the hippie period.

The designs are detailed with lots of fun doodles to color. The eyes on most of the animals has been done in a shaded grayscale. It makes for a very different eye that what I usually do but it is an unusual and nice change. The back of the page has quotes by famous individuals and unknowns that mostly deal with peace and love (the hippie mantra). I really like that a number of them are quotes from songs. It appears that the publisher has changed from color print on these back pages back to light gray print. I prefer that as sometimes the color could show through to the front of the page depending on which medium I work with.

Once again, I love the designs in this book but I am less pleased with the way that the publisher is printing 8 of the designs in less than full size. They have included a thumbnail color sample, some sample colors used in their design for inspiration and a few words to talk about the colors. It takes up the bottom 2.5 inches of the page. This information could be printed on a separate page or on the actual color sample page rather than on the coloring page.

In this book, it makes less of a difference than in other books. The designs can still be colored as there aren’t tiny elements but I would much rather color a full page designs. As the designs are not difficult to color, I won’t detract any stars from my review.

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This is a Charles Santore coloring book published by Pomegranate. It is a mix of various fairy tales and story books, including some designs which are included in his coloring books on a specific title, such as “Snow White” and “Aesop’s Fables”. Some of the pictures have darker shading than others and most have elements of grayscale coloring rather than simple line drawings. I treat them as if I were working on a full grayscale design by laying down a foundation of color using alcohol-based markers. Once that I am done with that layer, the gray shading became the shading in my colors. I then add colored pencil details and highlights.

The designs are really elegantly drawn with fine details from the original artwork. Thumbnails of the original watercolors of each design are printed in glossy prints on the inside of the front and back covers. I appreciate this touch as at times I need to look at the pictures to determine which part of the design I was coloring. You can follow the colors in the picture or, as I do, use my own color palette.

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I really like this coloring book. It’s as if Hannah Lynn and Sherry Baldy illustrations got together and had a child which is Julia Spiri’s designs. It’s not that Ms. Spiri’s artwork is derivative, simply that elements of her designs remind me of both of these artists. Kind of like when someone mentions a child looks like both parents.

The eyes on these girls are big but they are kind of sloe-eyes in the sense that they are every so slightly slanted. Their eyes are where a lot of detail is done. Many of the figures are standalone and if they have a background, it is not extensive. The designs are easy to color and fun as well.

The book is called the Artist’s Edition, which made me wonder if there was an earlier version printed on lesser paper et al. While I could not find an exact name, I did find that Ms. Spiri has an earlier book called “Whimsical Dreams” which also has 50 designs. It is not the same designs but I can’t tell if it is done on the same paper.

Speaking of the paper; this is excellent paper. It is thick and only alcohol markers bleed through. I don’t yet water-color but I would think these heavy of a weight of paper would do well with wet mediums

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