by Lonely Planet Kids, Lulu Mayo
Published by Lonely Planet on 15 November 2016
Style: color inspiration images, double page printing, single page illustrations
Pages: 48
Format: Card cover, Glue & Stitched
Goodreads
From the jungle treetops, to the ocean floor, there's an array of cute animals to color in!
You have the choice of copying the color palette provided in the inspirational image or come up with your own combination.
There are 22 cute animals to choose from including foxes, rabbits, badgers, raccoons, reindeer, whales and peacocks!
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The World’s Cutest Animal Coloring Book Video Review
I hope you enjoyed the video review of the The World’s Cutest Animal Coloring Book illustrated by Lulu Mayo.
The World’s Cutest Animal Coloring Book Review
As regular readers will know, I have a coloring crush on Lulu Mayo.    Her cute little kittys in A Million Cats stole my heart as did the gorgeous array of dogs in A Million Dogs. The book that surprised me the most was A Million Bears (I didn’t think that I would like it) filled with cute, chubby bears of all varieties how could I not fall in love!
When I heard that Lulu was illustrating a coloring book for Lonely Planet aimed at kids I thought I would pass on it.   I was not keen on expanding the content of this blog to children’s coloring books.   But every time I looked at the cover, those chubby little bears reminded me so much of A Million Bears, that I thought it might be worth giving this coloring book for kids a go.
Bunny love!
Cover & Layout
The card cover is pink and has as its centerpiece silver foil in the shape of a globe or a planet with cute animals adorning it. Although there is some uncolored line art on the front due to the laminate finish you would experience difficulty coloring it. The back cover features a group of those rolly polly pandas from the front cover in both colored and uncolored line art.    The back cover clearly indicates what to expect from the book.   A crimson spine with mauve and white text information completes the cover.
The Worlds Cutest Animal Coloring Book is larger than the books we are used to seeing illustrated by Lulu Mayo in the “Million” series of books.  It measures 27cm x 23cm approximately.
Ancillary Pages
Maybe because I’m Australian, but the cuddly Koala bear title page at the start of the book stole my heart.  This line art can be colored in by the colorist too.  If you need inspiration for a color palette over the page there is a colored version of the title page.
As this book is primarily designed for children Lonely Planet have incorporated educational pages at the rear of the coloring book.   There is a two page map with a lovely mauve background that shows where the featured animals can be found.   The keen colorist may also wish to color the line art on the map.
A two page section of facts about the world’s cutest animals follows.  These pages have been adorned with an assortment of patterns and cute animals that are already colored in.   I know that primarily the book is aimed at kids, but often we only learn about animals native to our country or animals that are exotic and found in zoos.  Sometimes, when I open up a coloring book I have no idea what the animal is, as I have never seen it before.   I remember when I reviewed Happy Birthday that I thought the cute animals were squirrels when, in fact, they were Chipmunks (the only chipmunks I’d ever seen were in the cartoon Chip n Dale) 🙂
The last page of the book features some colored animals at the foot of the page and blank for the balance.  This would be a great spot to test out your mediums and see how they react with the paper and your coloring technique.
Layout
The thing that I love the most about this coloring book is that each illustration has a colored version of it on the facing page.   If you ever need help choosing colors and get confused with color selection, then having an inspirational image opposite the picture that you are coloring can be very helpful.  Most of us learn by modelling the behavior of others so this can be particularly useful to children.    As a colorist that lacks confidence, I adore this feature in the book.  The colored images are so pretty that I would love to frame them and hang them up but then I would lose the line art …might be a case for asking Santa for another!
The illustrations are printed on a white medium quality paper that is smooth to the touch.   I would not risk using alcohol markers or very wet water based colors on the paper until you have carried out some tests at the back of the book or the copyright page at the front of the book.       The book is so delightfully cute, that you would kick yourself if you found your mediums bleeding through to the pretty colored image on the reverse.
Illustrations
There is a lovely variety of illustrations as you would expect from a Lonely Planet publication and the animals are all seriously cute as you would expect from an illustrator like Lulu Mayo.   You will find sea creatures, jungle critters and woodland dwellers within.   Some of the cute animals wear little outfits and others are unadorned.
All of the animals have surrounding background and foregound detail giving the colorist additional elements to color like flowers, sea life, mushrooms and sometimes even more animals.
The images all seem to be created to fit a circular framework. I am assuming this depicts our lonely planet and emphasizes the slice of the world that the animals come from.
Lulu has drawn the illustrations with varied line weights in black which is not as sharp as her usual art work.  Most of the illustrations hae a lot of detail but enough large areas and open spaces that colorists young and old could enjoy.
All of the art work has been well centered on the page away from the spine, making it easy to color.
Although this book is really marketed towards kids in my view most adult colorists that love cute, quirky and whimsical would adore this book. If you could bear to share it may be oneto color with your child.
The World’s Cutest Animal Coloring Book Image Gallery
Please click on an image to view more detail.
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Where to buy The World’s Cutest Animal Coloring Book
| In the US Buy Here | In the UK Buy Here | In Canada Buy Here | Worldwide- Buy From Book Depository |
Here’s my first colored picture from this cute book. I used Tombow markers, Steadtler fine liners, Crayola pencils and Polychromos. None of the mediums used bled through or damaged the page.
Happy coloring x
Lea
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