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Wildlife Paradise
Dot-To-Dot In Colour series
Shane Madden

Apple Press (an imprint of The Quarto Group)
16 February 2017/ ISBN 9781845436728
How-To Books/Art

Reviewed by Rachel A Hyde

 

If you are an adult who loves both coloring and puzzles, then the latest craze for dot-to-dot books will be right up your street. This one has the extra twist of being in color, with each picture being made up of between three and eight sets of colored numbered dots. These are then joined in sections and the whole colored in. Unlike most similar books, this one also has an introduction that explains why this type of activity is good for you, and has tips on how best to do it. This includes advice on which pens to use for dot joining and suggestions on how to color in the image. There are thirty different animals to choose from and a good range of subjects from the usual favorites to less obvious choices. The cover features a lion’s head and inside you can find snakes, a coral reef scene, flamingos, tiger, raccoon, dolphins, gecko, clown fish, mandrill and more. Each picture is printed on one side only and the reverse is an attractive pastel shade.

As a child if I had not gone through the paper and the reverse was blank, I would use this for drawing my own pictures. This is always an option! Good eyesight and lighting are essential as the dots and numbers are tiny but clearly printed on white paper, which is very smooth and rather shiny, offering no tooth for optimum pencil coloring, and it’s fairly thin but dense. I would not use aquarelle pencils, paints or permanent markers like Sharpies, but anything that will not sink into or distort the paper will work. Good results can be had with waterbased felt pens (color lightly), pastels and crayons. Pictures can be taken out and framed but are not perforated, so careful cutting (rule a pencil line first) is required if removing prints. The book is a generous 11¾” x 8¼” so a good size for hanging on the wall. In short, there are many things to rate highly about this book, which I hope will be the first in a series.


UK Reviewer: Rachel Hyde's work can be found in Sewing World, Sew Hip, Popular Crafts and other magazines.
Reviewed 2017
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