Colorful Creations Butterfly Mandalas: Coloring Book Pages Designed to Inspire Creativity! (Design Originals) 32 Gorgeous Designs & Tips from Jess Volinski, Artist of the Notebook Doodles Series

Open the book and you will be amazed at the amount of useful into that will inspire you to take a fantasy trip through Butterfly Land. I am delighted with my new coloring book, and there is not much to not like about it. This book allows the colorist/artist to either duplicate some of the beautiful examples or show the world your own creative ideas.Lots of Pros: The beginning of the book is filled with various guides that include explanation and examples:1. EMOTION GUIDES: assists with identifying colors that are associated with various moods or emotions such as happy, quiet, sad, adventurous, mysterious etc. Ex: Happy...yellow, green, turquoise, red, orange.2. ELEMENTS OF ART are explained with examples such as Line, Shape, Texture etc.3. COLORING TECHNIQUES: A fantabulous bonus that serves as an indispensable aid to expanding the skills of the colorist who needs help in choosing colors that best complement each other.4. COLOR WHEEL: guide to help you make color choices for creating awesome butterfly mandalas. These pages explain various colors such as primary, secondary, complementary etc. and show awesome examples with names of tools (pens, pencils, markers etc.) used for each finished image, colorist name, and page number of coloring page to either duplicate or create your own masterpiece.5. Quality glue bound spine, easy open and stay put for at ease and stress free coloring.6. Choice paper: White, smooth (just a hint of texture/tooth) and a good weight. The guides and colored examples at the front of the book are on slightly glossy, smoother paper. Nice.7. Most coloring tools work well. I used a variety from wet (markers, gel pens) to dry (variety of colored pencils and leads). Colored leads are by far the easiest and most forgiving, but do not offer the intense colors that gel pens and markers produce.8. Nice variety of high caliber designs with one per page, including simple to more complex. The back of each coloring page has a quote by a famous person, and that is surrounded by a design just waiting to be colored. The front cover picture is included again in color and another waiting for your ingenuity to create same or a different look.9. Nice size: Just under 8.5 inches wide x 10¾ L x 3/8 inches thick with a colorful, gloss, heavy wight (think card-stock) cover. A little large for a handbag, but would fit nicely into a brief case, tote bag, back pack or hand carry.10. Numbered front/back pages (80) with copyright, artist name (Jess Volinski) web page addresses, book title, and design name at bottom of page.11. Images are well-spaced on each page and leave a 3/8” - ½” space between the images and spine and ½” to paper's edge.While this is a good investment for soothing the tattered nerves, it is not perfect...close however.Cons:1. Markers will bleed-through and muss the page with the quotes. Always use a blotter! This will not prevent bleed-through, but may forestall a few tears.2. Gel pens leave a shadow on back side of colored page. Best use a blotter here also.3. Light touch with colored pencils leaves a sandpaper texture look unless several layers are applied. A blender pencil or a heavier hand will smooth the look. The HAPPINESS picture is my experimental one, and it does not look like the original. Some of my colored leads do not show up very well, and the glitter gels just turned dull and dark. The picture does; however, show the bleed-through and the shadows. Perhaps I need to work on my photography as well as acquiring a steady hand for small areas!WHAT I USED: Colored leads: El Cheapo Mechanical pencils 2mm, (made in China variety), June Gold 2mm mechanical pencils, Faber-Castell metallic, Prismacolor Premier, Prisamacolor Col-eraseGel Pens: Gelly Roll metallic, Color Technik premium, metallic), LeDessin metallic gel pens, Paper Mate InkJoy, Lolliz glitter, metallic and neon, AmazaPens pastelMarkers: Pentel Arts color pen (fine point), Aquarelle Brush (dual tip)

Each book from Jess Volinski has been excellent. Filled with beautiful designs, a variety of easy to more involved designs, each page is a joy to color with no page being too intricate that one might feel overwhelmed or intimidated. Have noticed her style in designs use similar patterns within her designs from book to book. I find this comforting as I know what to expect.The beginning of the book has examples of completed pages in the book so if you're like me & freeze trying to figure out where to begin, these examples help get you started. Of course, a more experienced colorist can choose whatever color palette they like. Several pages are offered to help the beginning colorist learn techniques of the color wheel, how to choose a color palette that works, & different techniques in coloring like texture, depth, & shading..The pages are each perforated for easy removal and printed on one side to prevent bleed through & ruining any design on the back of the page.All the books I've bought by this artist & author have been a pleasure to use.Please leave feedback yes or no if this review was helpful so I can improve providing helpful reviews. As a consumer, I read other reviews for products I'm considering purchasing and they do help make my decisions.

This is a very high quality coloring book, from the clear crisp pictures to the extremely high quality paper it's printed on. I have purchased many, many coloring books and by far this is the highest quality book ever. In fact, just purchased a couple more by Jess Volinski!

Beautiful book full of delightful mandalas to color with butterfly designs worked into each one. I had seen Jess Volinski's work in my Design Original magazines as a featured artist and knew I would love a whole coloring book of her work. So far, I am having a great time coloring her exquisite designs and loving each one!

This book far exceeded my expectations!The text and instructions are wonderful.The drawings and quotes are fantastic.The paper quality is excellent.Also was delivered by USPS earlier than expected by 5 days !!

This coloring book is one of the best. I will buy this again. The pages are amazing and fun to color. Paper quality holds up great using gel pens. Very beautiful.

This is one of my favorite coloring books that I have ever purchased. (I have 19 coloring books, thus far.) It is not too simple, nor too complex, but just right. The paper quality is nice, the pages are perforated for easy removal and the pictures are all one sided (which is so nice if you are a person who uses markers.) I love that the artist has color charts with suggested color combinations for some of the pages and also has examples of some of the pages colored. Love, love, love this coloring book. I bought a second one for my sister who loves butterflies and is an artist.

Love this book - love the designs and love that the pages are perforated. I use gel pens and markers - some bleed thru but I tear it out first and then it works great!

I love design originals and especially Jess Volinski. This one is a lovely book. But it seems the usual perforated lines that are usually there have not been put into the book properly therefore i have to rip the page out making it look a mess. So im a bit gutted about that. But it is the first time its happened. Ill still continue buying the books anyways.

great pictures to colour my wife loves it

This book is so therapeutic to complete and it has so many designs to choose from! I will definitely be buying from here again!

What is there not to like about butterflies and colouring

Love it!