Rustic Country Scenes 2: Life Escapes Adult Coloring Book with 48 grayscale coloring pages of old barns, wagons, country homes, windmills and more

This book is chucked full of images of old buildings in varying states of deterioration. Some are old houses and some are barns. Most are surrounded by tall grass in variable stages of decline, fallen leaves and other debris. There are also old wooden barrels, farm equipment and a windmill or two along with some other rustic objects/scenes. They are all fun images that come alive with added color. You will also find a waterwheel, at least a couple of bridges and a vine covered cottage, a thatched roof and the remnants of what appears to be an old store.For this book, you will need lots of grays, shades of brown and greens, 'cause there are loads of plants, trees, old wood and rocks. Add a blue, a yellow, maybe an orange, plus a back, gray and white. Oh yes, you will definitely need a pencil sharpener nearby because some of those spaces are v-e-r-y tiny, and maybe a few fine nib gel pens of neutral colors and a bright color as well. Now you are all set. Ooops, if you are using a wet coloring tool, don’t forget the blotter page beneath the coloring page.I used mostly chalk pastels, but also had fair success with fine nib gel pens and most colored pencils. Tombow, Colore and Prismacolor Verithin did a fairly decent job. The softness of darker shades and bright shades of Prismacolor Premier tended to cause a bit of smearing. The pastel Premiers; however, did okay.The images are fairly close to the spine, but the non-perforated pages can be removed fairly easily if one wishes to do so. Most of the images are fairly intricate, and are definitely not for the beginner. Some have some really dark areas that are a bit difficult to accept color. The ink on those areas will blend in with the added color giving it a less desired look or the added color will simply rub off or smear when blending is tried. Some of the white areas are also a bit resistant to accepting color. If the paper was a bit more user friendly, and the really dark images less so, the book would be a 5+.The fairly standard lightweight, white paper will most likely have bleed-through with gel pens and brush markers.Basic how-to for coloring grayscale plus a color test page is included at the back of the book. There are also two blank pages that I found helpful for testing my coloring tools.You will also find instructions for how to get a free digital copy color guide for this book. Four pages of images of other adult coloring books offered by this company is also included.I really like many of Kimberly Hawthorne’s books, and this one has not disappointed. Most of the images have just the right amount of intricacy that I like, but a few are really extreme. I wish; however, there were a few more images included with the description of the book so that a potential buyer might have an idea of what to expect. There are two images shown in the “look inside” section; however, one of those, the plow horses, is not included in this book.

This is the same as the first color book. It is too hard to color and even when you finish the shadows it’s hard to color the rest of the page.