Crayola Nature Escapes Coloring Book

I wanted to consolidate the pages from this coloring book that I have already completed so I can refer to them at a later point. If you are following along with this 2018 resolution, this is a great place to start. I started coloring this book on the Coloring Across America Tour. 

I will primarily be using my Copic Markers for this book since it is my medium of choice. I promised to evaluate the book with Prismacolor colored pencils and with Caran d'Ache water resistant wax crayons.

As a reminder, the turtle above was created using the Crayola Super Tips markers. For an extended explanation of this page, visit here.

The bees above were colored with Crayola colored pencils. For a detailed explanation of this page, please visit here.

Finally, the flamingo page was colored with crayons. For a detailed explanation of this page, please visit here.

To easily access this series of pages, you can click on the label CraoylaNatureEscapes. One of my goals of 2018 is to color all of the pages in this book.

Day Twenty Two

This is the last coloring assignment for the Coloring Across America Tour. This is the third installment from the Best Adult Coloring Book. The final installment is done with colored pencils. The smooth finish to this paper makes the colored pencils glide across the page and allows colors to be easily layered. As I mentioned previously, I like the way the artists provide open space so that additional designs can be added.

The above image shows a completed page as designed. I am very pleased with the way it turned out. I then decided to add my own designs.

Here is the final result and I very happy with the total page.

Day Eighteen

Today’s coloring assignment is from a collection of coloring postcards called Winter Dreams. I purchased my copy from Amazon. I liked the designs although some of them are microdesigned in that there are a lot of little details that can be colored or overlooked. The paper is of a nice quality and holds ink well but probably is best suited for colored pencils. I am going to try and see how my Copic markers do when I return home. The cards are a larger postcard and measure 5 inches by 7 inches. I like the theme because it is holiday related without being in your face about it. They also can be appropriate to send for Winter Solstice and New Years.

I ultimately decided to use colored pencil after my marker fail (see and explained below). With colored pencil, the color spreads nicely on the paper. More importantly, the paper doesn’t become so saturated that colors can be layered. If you look at the bird above, the blue grey of the head was the base color of the entire bird. All of the other colors on the body were layered on top of that base color. For the tail feathers, a fuchsia color was laid down and then red was layered on top of it. I am still trying to solve the background dilemma that I face when I am presented with so much open space. I don’t know if it is the Crayola brand of pencils or my technique that I don’t like.

Well—they all can’t be masterpieces. I started today’s assignment with a different card. Because of the high quality of the paper, I was excited to try and color this set with markers. Because of the rag content of the paper, the color gets easily absorbed into the paper. While I liked the color variation acheived with the berries, when I tried to layer color on the bird it just didn’t work. The bottom layer of color gets so absorbed into the paper that when the second color is used, it simply does not blend. I will try and color blend on blending paper and then apply it to the postcard in a future attempt. I wam happy to say that the markers did not bleed onto the reverse side of the postcard.

Day Seventeen

Today’s coloring assignment is the third installment of the book The Big Book of Christmas Color Book. Previously the pages were colored with crayon and marker. Today’s page is done with colored pencil. The high rag content of the paper makes this an easy page to color with pencils. The color spreads easily but does not cover the entire area. When you crosshatch the color, it still does not completely cover the page.

For this book, the most successful medium was the page with markers and the second most suggested was crayon. The least successful was the colored pencil. This is a great book with a variety of easier to color images.

Marker Page

Crayon Page

Day Thirteen

Today’s coloring assignment is a continuation from the coloring book Nature Escapes. For page two, I wanted to see how colored pencils worked with the paper. I am really pleased with the way this turned out. I colored the honeycomb pattern first and I layered theee colors to achieve the effect. Once I worked out the color palette and the patterns I wanted to highlight, the rest was simply coloring by number.

Tomorrow I will do the third in the series and will color with crayons.

Day Nine

This is another book that I found on Amazon. Inchose three examples from this book based on their simplicity. I decided to use colored pencils for this particular page.

The above is the before image. Blogger aeems to be acting up so this will be a shorter blog post until I can figure what is going on.

Overall I am very happy with the way it turned out. I would have changed a couple of color choices but can live with the final product.

Day Five

Today's coloring challenge is two pages from a 2018 Page a Day Coloring Calendar that I bought on Amazon. This is the perfect way to get your daily dose of coloring done. Each page is about 5 1/4 inches by 4 3/8 inches. The coloring area is about 3 1/8 inches by 3 3/4 inches. The paper is thin but holds up well to colored pencils and markers. The paper is very porous so blending might be an issue for some. I used the Crayola Super Thins. I would be interested to see how my Copic Markers would do. I hope to get the chance to try crayons on the third sheet that I brought along. This would make a great gift for the coloring enthusiast in your family. The back side of each sheet could be used as scratch paper but there is a lot of bleed through with the markers although there wasn't any feathering of color when using the water based markers. I will let you know how the Copic Markers do when I return from the tour. There are a variety of styles presented in the calendar and the small size is great without getting overwhelming should the pattern be overly complicated.

January 1 Before

January 1 After (with colored pencils)

January 2 After (with markers)

As you can see in the second example, the layering of color works with some colors better than other colors. For the leaves, the light green was applied first and the darker green afterwards. The effect turned out more streaky than layered. For the flower leaves, the yellow was applied first and the orange and ochre applied afterwards with better results.

Day Four

Today's coloring assignment was chosen by Bethanie, a 10 year old young lady from the Twin Cities. Her parents gave her permission to come visit me in the observation car. She only wanted to watch because she isn't a good colorer. She looked through the materials and chose this gingerbread house and she chose all of the colors used. We used pencils because the train was rocking a lot and the markers would have made it difficult to color the smaller/intricate parts.

Before

I am happy with the way it turned out. Granted it is a little more finicky than I prefer but that is what this whole Coloring Tour is about. By getting out of my comfort zone, I get to develop new techniques including learning to color on a moving train. What pains me is how self-critical a 10 year old can be. She didn't like the original color of the marshmallow trees in front of the house and she wanted to stop and start on a different picture. I showed her how layering a different color on top of the first color would get a different color. I also showed her how to test a color on a scrap of paper to see if it was the color she wanted. She was afraid that she ruined the picture. I also told her that since it was her picture she was the only one she had to please.

After we finished, she got up to leave and I told her not to forget to take her picture with her. She didn't realize that she got to keep the picture. I signed it and gave it to her and she literally skipped to her seat.

The coloring book is one of three complete coloring books I brought along. Most of the other pages are just samples. This book has a variety of styles from which to choose and are very fitting of the holiday season. I purchased my copy on Amazon.

Day 30--30 Day Coloring Challenge

Well, this is the last day of the 30 Day Coloring Challenge. I decided to share with you the beginnings of my holiday card this year. For the past 10 years, I have been sending out a variation of the 12 Days of Christmas. It begins with coloring the image, scanning it, and then printing it on vellum. I prepare a trifold card and place the vellum within the fold. These are called stained glass cards because they are meant to be displayed with a battery operated candle within. The below images were from the card sent in 2011.

Four calling birds

Four calling birds with light

The Nine Ladies Dancing image will get the same treatment. The glossy paper is filled in with colored pencils and then blended with Gamsol.

And with that I leave the 30 Days of Coloring Challenge completed. I will take Sunday off and will return to regular blogging next week.