Color Me Mindful Butterflies by Anastasia Catris
I have always been a huge fan of coloring books, so when the adult coloring book craze first hit I was so excited! Not only is it hard to find good coloring books, but when you do find them they usually aren't anything that I would generally want to color which is why this craze has definitely been amazing for those of us that want something a bit more adult to color. The problem with any craze though is how do you know which ones are good and which ones aren't, especially when a lot of times you have to order them online and don't get a chance to flip through them first in person. So when I was given the opportunity to review a few different coloring books for Gallery Books, I couldn't wait. The first one that really captured my attention was Color Me Mindful Butterflies by Anastasia Catris.
This book is beautiful! The images are professional looking and well drawn. The images range from intricate and detailed drawings for the most advanced at coloring, to larger more simple drawings perfect for those looking to just relax for a bit without having to put much thought into what they are doing. Each image is gorgeous, and for those that are butterfly fans this book is a must have! I have a friend that loves butterflies and coloring, and the minute I opened this up I knew I was going to have to get her one as a gift. I really cannot even begin to do this book justice with how pretty it is, and I forsee many hours ahead of me coloring some beautiful images as my stress melts away. I am definitely going to be checking out the other coloring books that Anastasia Catris has in her Color Me Mindful set, as I think that they look just as amazing as her butterfly version does. I highly recommend this one, especially to those that love butterflies.
**Copy provided by Publisher**
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In Bloom! by Sigita Alekne
Of all the coloring books I was recently sent by Gallery Books, I have to say that In Bloom! by Sigita Alekne was my least favorite. This book right away looked like one that wouldn't be for me, and unfortunately once I opened it and started to browse through it was confirmed. The images inside looked very amateurish and as though they were sloppily drawn and thrown together. They didn't look professional to me at all. As I looked through another thing that I noticed is that a lot of the pages were very empty, with little actually on them to color or do. There was a lot of blank space throughout the entire book, and that sort of defeats the purpose of having a book to color when there isn't much there to actually color. The other thing that really kept me from liking this one is that when there was a big image to color, a lot of times it was split into two pages with the bulk of the image being in the middle where the book is bound. So you actually end up losing the majority of the image to the crease in the book making it next to impossible to really color the image.
Because of these things, I have to say that this isn't a book that I would buy or recommend to others. With there being so many coloring books to choose from these days, this one just didn't make the cut for me. I think that there are those that would like these images and appreciate the more hand drawn quality that I did, but I think that the execution of the images needs to be better considered for a coloring book. In order to be successful, these really need to be redrawn and configured, making it easier for readers to color them with more on the blank pages and images not centered where the book is bound. I would recommend skipping this one and looking for something different if you are looking for a flowers and plants type of coloring book.
**Copy provided by Publisher**
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Atelie Fashion by Rafaella Machado
Atelie Fashion was fun and quirky, and I can see a lot of people really enjoying this book. While the images often times had an amateurish feel to them, I enjoyed the hand-drawn images for the most part and the fact that some of them looked like I had drawn them myself before coloring. There was a wide variety of images to color here, ranging from common patterns blown up in size to be easy for basic coloring, to more detailed and intricate drawings for advanced coloring. The images were playful, and I loved flipping through them trying to decide which one I wanted to color first.
This book had a great range of images, making it a great book for those that sometimes want to do something quick for stress relief as well as have something that will take more time and requires a bit more precision. While I did have some that I really loved out of the images here, there were some that I though looked a bit more amateurish than I would have liked. I still think that this is a fun coloring book, but the images have a wide range when it comes to skill level as well as execution. This is one that I think some will enjoy, with it's fun and quirky images, but if you are looking for a gift for someone else, I don't know that I would recommend this being the one to give. I think that had these images been a bit more professional looking, that this book would have been close to perfect. But some of the images were just a bit too sloppy at times.
**Copy provided by Publisher**
Purchase: | Amazon | B&N |
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