Disclaimer: This review was conducted by Suzy Goodyear. This item was purchased by me as part of my personal collection. Some of the links below are associated with affiliate programs which provide me with a small commission from any orders you may place. This will not affect the price or quality of products you receive but will assist me with the costs involved in running this site. For more details please see our Disclosure Statement.
Artist
- Kelly Canby, Smiljana Coh, Louise Cunningham, Woody Fox, Jess Golden, Julie Ingham, Patricia MacCarthy and Keith Robinson
Publisher
- Hinkler Books Pty Ltd (2015)
- Printed in China
Book Dimensions
- Approximately 11¾ inches x 8¾ inches (29.5cm x 21.0cm)
- There are 94 pages to color in the book
Quality of Paper
- Average – the paper is slightly thicker than standard printer paper
- The paper does allow for a range of coloring media to be used but it is worth noting that water-based markers and gel pens will shadow and likely bleed through. Alcohol markers will definitely bleed through the paper.
- The paper is a white color
Single or Double Sided Print
- Double-sided print
Intricacy of Designs
- There is a variety of designs from very simple to very intricate
Types of Pictures
- All of the pictures contain an animal or bird
- There is a good variety of difficulty levels
Binding
- Glued
- Some pictures are across double page spreads and the picture goes right into the margins
- Tightly bound which is difficult to lay flat for easy coloring of the double page spread pictures
- No perforated / removable pages
Notable Aspects
- A number of the pictures have been partly colored to help you with color choices.
- Some pictures have less detail in them to allow the colorist to add their own details if they want
- Many of the pictures used throughout this book are Shutterstock.com images which means they can be reproduced by publishers who pay a fee to use the images. This means you may find the same image has been included in a number of different adult colouring books produced by different publishers.
Pros
- Good variety of picture styles
- Good variety of difficulty levels
Cons
- Paper is not very thick so use of many different coloring media other than colored pencils such as water-based markers, gel pens and alcohol-based markers will bleed through.
- As pictures are printed on both sides of the page, using any medium that bleeds through will mean you will lose the ability to colour one of the two pictures
- Having some pictures already colored can limit your color choices
- Difficult to color the areas close to the margin on double page pictures
Price Range
- $$ – typically AUD $5.01 – $20.00 / US $3.76 – $15.00 / £2.61 – £10.00 / €3.31 – €13.25
Conclusion / Recommendations
Art Therapy Menagerie & More has a good variety of picture styles. Some are simple to color others have more intricate details.
Some of the pictures have parts already colored. Depending on your perspective this can be either a positive or a negative. If you have difficulty choosing colors then you might find the pre-colored sections helpful as you can finish the picture with similar colors. If you prefer to choose your own colors then this may limit you somewhat.
I have used colored pencils and gel pens on the pages I have colored so far. The colored pencils were easy to use on the paper. The gel pens were also easy to use but there was definitiely some shadowing on the page behind.
This is a reasonable book with a lot of pictures to color at a reasonable price. If you like animal designs you may enjoy this book.
Where to Buy this Product: