Fantastic Cities: A Coloring Book of Amazing Places Real and Imagined

The media could not be loaded. "Fantastic Cities" by Steve McDonald is simply a fantastic collection of detailed aerial views of a huge variety of cities from around the world. The list is simply too long but includes cities in Germany, Canada, Greenland, France, Yemen, New York, Italy, Japan, Singapore, the Netherlands, Rio de Janerio, Turkey, India, Mexico, England, Australia, and Greece. Those are the real cities - there are also imagined places as well. Some of the designs are presented in an almost mandala form as well. The books is really stunning in the sheer scope of coloring. Both my husband and I like to color architectural drawings and this book is a feast for those, like us, who appreciate this art form.The book is oversized at 11.5 by 11.8 inches. I mentioned this because framing these will be a little more unusual, but you can always mat them to a more standard size. The only unfortunate thing about the book is that the designs are printed on both sides of the paper and I have experienced bleed through with some of my gel pens and markers. If you want to color each of the designs with gel pens or markers, you can always purchase a second copy. As soon as the book arrived and both my husband and I decided we wanted to color it, I purchased a second copy. My original thought is to use my pencils with really sharp points, but I will have to decide on a case-by-case basis as to how each design speaks to me.If you use inks, I would still suggest using a sheet of freezer paper behind the page you are working on to keep the inks from bleeding through to yet another page. I use freezer paper in between the sheets (if I am keeping it in the book) or under the page if I remove it from the book. I find that it works well for me. You can also put multiple sheets of heavy stock paper in between if you don't have freezer paper handy (it is sold at most grocery stores and is fairly inexpensive and can be reused.)The pages are bright white and a nice heavy stock. The pages are not perforated but the book can be made to lie flat. It appears that the pages should be fairly easy to remove from the glue edge binding but I haven't attempted as yet.At least half of the designs in the book have very intricate and small details and I am sure that I will have to use my magnifying lamp for those designs.The book has a whopping 58 intricate designs (not including the title page which can easily be colored, too). There is a table of contents of sorts on the inside of the cover page but also nice is that each design is labeled with the title/location.There are so many choices and so many designs I want to color, I have to think about which one to start with. I color in adult coloring books as a stress reliever at the end of busy days (especially those days when I watch my grandson!) I find that the process of colorizing puts the busy thoughts out of my head and I am able to focus single mindedly, such as you do in meditation. This should be a lovely book for taking stress away and each project will take some time to finish. Both my husband and I are looking forward to coloring these designs.

The biggest reason I love this book is for the paper quality! I am using watercolors in three ways, watercolor pencils, half pan cakes, and liquid (from the tube) watercolors. I'm using an aquabrush (I prefer the Pentel brand) with absolutely no bleed through at all! I've tried this with all my other coloring books including the Secret Garden series, and I get some bleed through on all of them. I started "The Magical City" coloring book and I'm doing it all in inktense watercolor pencils and I love it! I definitely get bleed through and paper wrinkling but it's been acceptable and so much fun that I wanted to try it again with more realistic architectural pictures to color. Fantastic Cities fit the bill! The drawings are incredible with lots of detail. My favorite thing about the drawings is the amount of perspective. It gives me a chance to challenge my watercolor skills in creating depth by using the perspective already correctly drawn. I just need to try to choose colors that accentuate what the artist has provided me with to begin with. Using the half pan watercolor cakes, I started with my least favorite page (in case I ruined it and to familiarize myself with how the paper would respond) , which was a city scape turned into a mandala/kaleidoscope view. I was shocked that no color bled through at all. I decided to be a little more free with my water and again, no bleed through! Even in larger areas that I used a wash. Then I tried both Inktense and regular Derwent watercolor pencils and the water brush. Still no bleed through. Finally I tried my traditional, from the tube and diluted with water, watercolors. Again, no bleed through. Now, to be fair, I'm not leaving puddles of water on the page but I'm also not using the least amount of water possible. After trial and hardly any errors, I feel almost no restriction using any of my watercolor supplies (listed above) other than totally drenching the paper and lots of rewetting and scrubbing. So far there has been very little buckling of the paper also. I expected a lot of buckling as I get that with water color paper too to some degree at times and this is not watercolor paper. The only issue I've run across with watercolor is that the paper does pill after you've gone over the same area multiple times but that is acceptable to me and much less than expected. The paper is smooth, heavy with a very slight cream tone. The book is also larger than most others. Drawings are on both sides of the paper but that hasn't been an issue. All in all, I really enjoy the coloring book. It has a lot of detail but that's making it more fun for me. I don't care for the mandala scenes that much because I am interested in the architectural aspect but they may break it up for a lot of people. I would love if they did a landscape book, but don't skimp on those details because the detail makes this book great. It would be fun if they printed the line art in a softer grey for those who like to do watercolor but I don't think the black lines take away from the book at all. It's a coloring book after all. I just happen to be using watercolor for fun. I don't think this paper would hold up to juicy markers. Even with all the praise I've given the paper. Less juicy, maybe, but I just don't think markers are an option for most two sides coloring books period. I'm very happy with my purchase! It arrived quickly with Prime in excellent condition for a reasonable price. Especially for the quality of the paper!