Take Your Coloring to The Next Level With Color Squared

I have a pretty impressive collection of coloring books at this point. Not all of them are adult coloring books to be honest. Yes, I color in kids coloring books, too. Truth be told, I've always loved to color and be creative. I have an entire(overflowing) closet of arts and crafts, but sometimes I get bored with the same old coloring books. I mean, at this point they all tend to be so similar that there's very little variety anymore. then I came across Color Squared and coloring became more creative again. 

Color Squared isn't your average adult coloring book. Instead of a clear illustration with fancy floral elements and mandalas, this book puts me in the mind of pictograms. For each page, you choose 6 or more colors all in shades from dark to light and color according to numbered squares. Yu can choose any colors you want, as long as you start with 5 being the darkest and 1 being the lightest. You also have the background to color, marked by an X, which can be any color or shade you want it to be. 

For this particular book, it's highly recommended that you use markers or pens. The squares are much too small for crayons and colored pencils just don't look right. Here's where it gets more creative. You don't have to just color the squares in. You can use dots, line hashing, an various other patterns through out the picture. You can also go back in and add color over top of other colors. For instance, you can color a series of squares in blue and go back in with a red pen, and add a pattern to the squares to make, say, a flannel pattern. 

I thought some of it was a little tedious; it's going to depend on which photo you are doing and how much detail you put into it. There's a handy instructional at the beginning of the book, but so far, I've just been coloring the squares in regular. My 11 year old actually enjoyed doing one as well. She colored a butterfly, and although we stopped half way into it to go out for dinner, she came back home and got right to it and was so proud of herself when she finished it. 

A lot of the items in the book are nostalgic items that mostly anyone will recognize from an old style telephone, roller skates, Rubix Cube, and even a Troll doll.  

You can see the photo of the one you are working on, on the back of that page. So you can peek and do only the one you are interested in and choose colors to go with that item, or you can blindly choose colors and a design and be surprised when it's all done; which I think is a fun way to do it if you ask me. The only downside is that, even though the pages are thick, you still have bleed through when you use markers. As I said, markers are the way to go as they color over smoother and just looks better. I also should mention that the best markers to use are the double tipped ones. The finner tip side can be used for single boxes, and I used the larger, chisel tipped one for the larger areas. 

It's a fun book though! We really enjoy it. 

Color Squared on Amazon

*Disclosure: This product was received as a sample in exchange for an honest, unbiased, review. The reviews and or opinions on this blog are 100% my own. No monitory compensation was received and I was not required to write a positive review. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissions 16 CFR Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsement and Testimonials in Advertising.