This one is from Lost Ocean by Johanna Basford. I tried to on this one to mix medias of marker and color pencils, and well as I pointed out in part one "I do not recommend color pencils for these..." The border was fun to do, but when I started the sand castle in color pencils I lost my groove for coloring it. I was becoming frustrated and was not relaxing and enjoying myself with the small details of the center. As you can see I didn't bother finishing it for that very reason. Relaxation factor: Below Average. Markers are good for the border, but I recommend gel pens, fine tip art markers, or fine tip permanent markers. Unless you are okay with your coloring skills on these with color pencils (which I'm not).
Owl design from Millie Marrota's Tropical World book. Another one of my favorites. I found this one to be very relaxing since I started coloring it. A pretty simple design with not too much going on. Again the only problem with it was not the page itself but my coloring devices.
Okay, this one is another prime example of Not Relaxing! From Animorhia by Kerby Rosanes. First off I love animals and thought this one might be fun, but with all of whatever is happening after the wild dog's head is beyond me. I did try to color it but got lost in the rhyme or reason behind the random things. It's easy to get lost in the mess of junk, and I couldn't figure out where things and fur were. Overall not fun by any means, seriously what does fish, worms, waves, a pencil, light bulb, doll, purse, cheese, etc. have to do with a wild dog? Relaxation factor: Low, Very Low. Who would find sorting out all the gunk going on here relaxing? I don't.
Dragon image from The Official A Game of Thrones Coloring Book. First off I was looking forward to coloring this one because I love painting dragons! And it didn't disappoint me. A fairly simple design of a trio of dragons and mountains. The smallest of the three was a little bit of a pain to color. Relaxation factor: Very High. Just to note, this could/can change depending on how you color it. I went for a very basic coloring rather than coloring the dragons more complexly via multiple colors on the main body. I did add some gold to the mountains in the front and did silver on the dragon claws, just to be different.
From Harry Potter Coloring Book. Gosh, where do I start with this one the background on this is from hell itself! Okay well not really, but still I stopped coloring this for fear of needing a straight jacket if I continued and tried to finish. As for the owl, snowy owls are my favorite type of owl and this one looks like one so therefore there is very little color needed. And the forest repeating pattern background is too busy, too much, and too small. Relaxation factor: So Low it need to be burned in the Earth's core. I only recommend this one if you have a ton of free time and are so bored that watching paint dry sounds fun and have a ton of fine tip coloring devices! Man, I might be throwing it away after this just to get it out of my sight. My eyes start crossing and I get a twitch from looking at it. Next please!
Captain America from Marvel's Color Your Own: Age of Ultron. *Insert Fangirl giggles here* Okay needless to say I'm a fan of Cap both on the big screen and on paper, and my markers did him justice. Alright fangirl aside, the Relaxation Factor: High. I only put it high because not everyone likes comic books and find them childish (that's so not the case but that's for another blog). With that out, this one is very rewarding considering the fact that shading is already covered on Captain American, so all you have to do is color him and he looks great in the glory of being beat up with a broken shield. And the background is pretty easy to color too, again shading is already covered.
Artwork from Vive Le Color! Butterflies. You know what I typed/said about the Harry Potter page? Yeah well ditto that for these butterflies of demonic small design. As you can tell with the one butterfly's colored body that even a fully sharpened pencil couldn't do any justice to the details of the page. Relaxation factor: So Low it need to be burned in the Earth's core. I only recommend this one if you have a ton of free time and are so bored that watching paint dry sounds fun and have a ton of fine tip coloring devices! Or you could scan it into the computer and pick a single butterfly and blow it up to save your mind.
Overall I would say take your time picking out what you want to color, look into all factors. Helpful factors are: Picture subject, details, and coloring devices.
1. Picture Subject
Always pick something you enjoy in real life otherwise it won't relax you. For example, my favorites included subjects of books, animals, and superheroes. Look at what's out there and don't pick up the first book you come across that might be a negative note onto your health with it. There are a ton of these everywhere! You can find them at these places: Art Stores (Michael's, Jo-Ann's, Hobby Lobby), Barnes and Noble, Target, and I've even seen some at Walmart. Shameless plug here: find someone with a Barnes and Noble membership for 10% off the coloring books there, and you can get 40-50% off cupons for the art stores I listed out of the Sunday paper ads and online off of their websites (these will make a difference since most of these books are 15+ dollars).
2. Details
Flip through the book of choice before buying! If you see more that three designs that don't look good to you via too much small details, too busy, etc. Put it down! Find another book with similar subject choice. Remember these Adult Coloring Books are suppose to be relaxing. And if you are like me small details and too busy details are not relaxing and in fact are just the opposite.
3. Coloring Devices or Utensils
I recommend testing various coloring tools out, you never know what you're going to like. I for one have many to choose from since I'm in fact an artist and have enough for a small store. There are many to choose from: Color Pencils, Markers, Gel Pens, Permanent Markers, Art Pens, Pastels, Paint, Charcoal, Ink, Pencils, Pens, Crayons, etc. Test them out on the pages you don't like or find a cheap on to use as a tester book (Target has some for 5 bucks). I would do a tester book because markers and permanent markers can bleed as can ink. Or you can always scan them into your computer and print out any you want to do and have a clean blank book, though I might do this only for the designs that I want to color more than once because that's a lot of ink to use just to have something relaxing to do.
-Till next time, FoxCat ya later.
PS I apologize if it's hard to read, that was not my fault it's something going on with blogger.
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