Customer Reviews

Traditional Designs from India (Dover Design Coloring Books)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Beautiful pages to color. Intricate so not for the very young. Good for copying onto a wall or furniture to paint. Unique designs.
www.davannayoga.com
puerto vallarta, Mexico

This is a lovely book either to color or to simply leave black and white. If you choose to color it, the designs are quite intricate and complex. It requires sharp pencils or fine tipped markers.

I know next to nothing about Indian Art, being from a very different cultural background myself, but it looks like Ms. Noble as gone to great pains to make her designs as accurate as possible. The designs come from varied sources: embroidery, woodcut, painting, scrolls, etc.-- some of which have been combined by the artist to created a composite piece of her own (and probably to make the design fit the page better).

This is one of the best coloring books that I have from Dover's cultural series. I think anyone who is enterested in different cultures or who simply wants an enjoyable coloring experience will like this book.

The Dover coloring books are great, the designs are wonderful, and I'm enjoying the time I spend coloring in them.

One thing to note, if you use markers there is some bleed through to the next page. It is unfortunate that I did not test this before I started out using markers. Colored pencils would be my recommendation unless you scan and print each picture on an individual page to color with markers.

I would order these again, and I'll probably end up ordering some for my daughter as she likes to spend time coloring intricate designs as well.

My 7-yr-old daughter was born in India and has a fascination with all things Indian, especially mehndi designs. This is a really beautiful and intricate coloring book that will give her many fun new ideas. Very nice.

The designs are double-sided, so these pages are NOT good for removing & framing, or for any wet media, which is what I use. I'm very disappointed for this will require me to make copies of any designs in order not to bleed through to the other design. Usually when double-sided, scanning & copying makes the back of page design show through, and the paper is thin & a bit off-white, so copies will not be clean. As for the designs, they are finely detailed, suitable for adults and teens.

I wanted to buy this coloring book for a long time, just for the possible designs it had in it. I wasn't sure if there was going to be a lot of small designs, like small 1 to 3 inch patterns of some sort, or maybe images that took up half of a page. What this book ended up containing were not smaller images, but rather, full sized pages of of some very interesting pictures and designs from India.

I am perfectly happy with it! I love this coloring book. I have a great interest in India anyhow, so I found this coloring book interesting.

But there are a couple of things you should know. In my opinion, this is not a coloring book for a small child, no, not at all. And I say this because the images, the pictures, have very very small areas to color in. Some are very intricate. Some of the pictures have very small patterns in them, and you'll need a fine point. And so, with that in mind, you should also think about using fine tipped markers to color these pictures, or colored pencils, which would probably be the best option, because the bad thing about this coloring book is that there is a different picture on each side of each page, so the marker colors will bleed through to the other side, ruining the other picture. This is the reason I didn't give it 5 stars. Why didn't they print only one image on each page? Leave the backside of the page blank, so it would be ok if the colors DID bleed through.

What I recommend is making photocopies of each page that you would like to color. Get some heavier stock paper, not just copy paper. And print out your own pages to color in. This way, you can always have the book with the originals.

Each picture has a small line of information under it, telling a little info about what each picture is, where it originated, what year it orignated, etc. Some are apparently very famous Indian pieces of artwork. Some of the pages are of pretty patterns, which are denoted to be things such are inlaid carvings in wooden boxes, or patterns found on a vase, for instance.

If you are looking for a book of Indian patterns, say you want to make henna tattoos, or some kind of small embroidery patterns to sew on clothes... or maybe you were looking for ideas of Indian themed patterns that you could yourself paint onto small art projects... then this book is probably NOT for you. Each page is one full sized image, nothing small here. HOWEVER, you CAN get TONS of ideas from studying each image, and I'm sure you could come up with your own smaller image and pattern designs and ideas.

If you are looking for larger full sized pages of beautiful Indian patterns or Indian scenes to color, images that have VERY SMALL areas to color in, (and you can color within the lines hahaha), then this book IS for you.

Only attempt this if you have a particular intrest in Indian art itself or are not afraid of messing up. The designs are straightforward but the spaces are small and balance is essential. this is for practiced hands and expert eyes only. the pictures are beautiful untouched and it is far too easy to mess them up. SERIOUS brainstorming is required...to the extent that, to me, this is almost a task, an assignment for art class.

Buy this book to prove your skill, not for entertainment.

Very fun to color! I'm addicted to coloring complicated patterns and what not. so this book has been a great way to spend my time. Over all most of the pages have very cool india patterns but some of the patterns are mostly animals or people so if you are into that sort of this you'll love this. I am more into paisley and geometric type design so the people were kind of a turn off for me, but its still fun!

Not bad, the designs are very intricate, so if you're using this book for relaxing and zoning out, it's great. Definitely for adults, I believe children might get frustrated. More for like 12yr old that are serious about drawing and above.

I purchase coloring books for adult use therapeutically. For that purpose I have found this coloring book useful and exciting, relaxing, and challanging creatively. I have not checked to see if the designs are truly traditional as that was not my purpose for them. I highly recommend this book if you need to destress. Personally, I use colored pencils on the designs with a light touch. Unfortunately, the designs are printed front to back but you can always make copies so you don't ruin the original.Traditional Designs from India (Dover Coloring Books)