Portrait of the MERMAID Coloring Book

Your browser does not support HTML5 video.  This is my second coloring book by Sara Burrier. The first was a book dedicated to fairies while this new book is all about mermaid. “Portrait of the Mermaid” is a smaller format, pocket sized book. I really appreciate having designs that are sized properly to this size of book. Quite often, pocket coloring books are simplistic designs or full format designs which have been sized down to the point that coloring becomes difficult. Not so with this lovely book of 20 hand-drawn designs.Each of the mermaids have their own personality. For my first three projects, I chose to use lighter almost pastel tones in a variety of alcohol-based Copic markers with Prismacolor pencils providing slight shading. I like that the mermaids range in age from children to adults. Their hair is drawn so beautifully and their bodies have a relaxed and natural look to them. As with Ms. Burrier's previous book, I'm having lots of fun coloring her imaginative ladies.This is what I found while coloring and testing this book:20 Hand-drawn Mermaid designs in a smaller pocket size formatDesigns are printed on one side of the page.Paper is thin, white, slightly rough non-perforated paper typical of all CreateSpace publicationsGlue BoundDesigns merge into the binding areaBook easily opens to a flat position for coloringAlcohol and water-based markers bleed through this paper (I cut down a piece of card stock to use as a blotter page below my working project – keeps the design below clean of seeping ink and marring dentsGel pens and India ink pens leave colorful shadows on the back of the pageColoring pencils work well with this paper. The soft lead pencils blend and layer well; however, the hard lead pencils leave dents on the back of the page.

The artwork in this book is gorgeous! I usually am not that attached to mermaids but I had to have it once I saw a preview of the artwork going into it. I follow the artist on facebook and that's how I learned of this book being published. In regards to book size I don't mind the smaller size though I don't deem it small enough to be actually be labeled pocket size because it won't fit into any of my pockets...I think if the main intent was to have a nice size to carry in a purse or traveling bag it definitely aces that. To me as a person who loves to do artwork the paper is kind of thin and seems thinner than the other coloring books I have bought, however it works just fine for color pencil, it shows off the colors nicely and the pencils blend okay on the sheet. I have a mix of Prismacolor and Crayola color pencils I use. I have not tried markers in this book....markers so far haven't been my favorite medium for the coloring books. My main bummers on this are that the pages aren't prefer-rated and that the images go all the way to the binding so you have to strain the binding to get most of it( these two reasons are the only reason I gave 4 versus 5 stars). Also in regards to the samples I did do some blending and multi-color on the skin-tones and hair colors. I can not say I am great of skill with color pencils nor do I own or use lots of sophisticated products...each page shown probably 2-3 days of spurts of coloring to complete. I wanted to make sure I had samples of the artwork and how the pages handled the color. Sorry for some reason the pictures after downloading show in landscape format though the saved computer files are in portrait. Again love your art Sarah! I can't wait to color some more of these gorgeous mermaids.

I knew this was a pocket sized book, but I was still surprised just how small it was when it arrived. The quality of the image printing is not the greatest either, which was highly disappointing. The designs were interesting, cute little mermaids. There are a couple of blank pages at the very end which could be used for testing colors, or just testing to see if your medium will bleed through the paper. One good thing about this book is that the images are all single sided, so if your medium does happen to bleed through then make sure you're using buffer page of decent quality.All in all, I really don't think this book is worth $10.

Another coloring book full of beautiful and unique mermaids to add to my collection!The book is smaller than most, more like purse sized instead of pocket sized, but with that you get the ease of being able to actually see what you're coloring without it taking hours and hours as it would with a full size color book. The images are all single sided so there's no need to worry about ruinning the picture on the following page and the paper works great with alcohol markers, colored pencils, and gel pens.The only reason I'm taking a star off is because the images go straight to the binding and you practically have to tear the book apart to get into all coroners

This is a fun little coloring book. The page size and detail of the illustrations makes these quick to color, and they come out pretty nice! There's lots of hair to color, so keep that in mind--could be good or bad depending on what you like. Paper is quite thin but one-sided, so it's okay for markers; just make sure you use card-stock behind the picture you're coloring. The paper has a good tooth so I found it easy to blend with my Prismacolors. Also used Bic alcohol-based markers and gel pens to color these pages.

I really enjoy this artist's style. The paper is good quality. One of the rare books that doesn't give you duplicate pages. I did not notice this was a mini coloring book when I ordered it, so do keep that in mind. The only con is the binding. The design reaches to the binding, which is very stiff as you lose some of the picture.

This book has been on my wish list for years. When I received Sara’s fairy book I was so taken with her art that I had to have this book as well.Do I wish the paper was better? Yes, but I will color these anyway, perhaps in the book or perhaps I’ll print them on colored paper, but color them I will!

the illustrations are lovely, don't get me wrong. I would be interested in other books created by this illustrator.However £6.99 is too pricey for such a small book with only 20 illustrations, also the paper is quite cheap.If the paper quality was better and there were a few more pages, I would have given this 5-stars.It should either be better quality paper or be priced at a more appropriate amount.

This is a gorgeous little book with some amazing artwork in it. I would definitely recommend it to any colouring book lover.The only problem with it (therefore the 4 stars) is the paper quality. It is just thin printer paper, so it should either be with a smaller price tag, considering it's 20 pictures inside, or for this price the paper should be much nicer!I still find the book very beautiful though, and at least it's one sided, which is a plus.So if you are willing to overlook the thin paper problem, you would definitely love this!

These gals have the prettiest faces and swirliest locks I've ever come across in a colouring book. The small size is perfect for completing a page a bit faster. But please colouring book artists - when will you understand that paper is everything in a book if you want to be able to build layers mix media? I understand the allure of self publishing but the flimsy paper quality really puts me off.

Fantastic pictures. Lovely little book, great for travelling with too. Typical create space awful paper but still took wc medium. Buckled but that ok for me.

A beautiful little book of quite cute images. Definitely recommend if you like fantasy based colouring pieces.