The Magical City: A Colouring Book (Magical Colouring Books) Paperback – International Edition, November 6, 2015

The media could not be loaded. “The Magical City” is the first coloring book I have picked up by Lizzie Mary Cullen. It is imaginative and wonderfully artistic. She has a style that swirls and gives a new life into buildings and landscapes. There are many cities included in this book. There is also a hidden objects search and find as many artistic coloring books are now including. The key is in the back of the book, along with what amounts to a “proof sheet” of the pictures in the book with the names of the cities/landmarks/buildings. I'll include a long listing at the bottom of this review if you would like to look through what is included.There are 70 designs in this book, 12 of which span across two pages. The book is printed on a good medium weight white paper. The cover does not come off but the inside of front and back can be colored though the paper is extremely glossy. The outside of the cover is beautifully illustrated and colored with a touch of silver foil on it. There are parts left that you can color and the outside is slick but not glossy.All of my markers bleed-through on this paper; however, none of my gel pens do though the darker colors leave a bit of shadowing on the back on the page. As the book is printed doubled sided on non-perforated paper, I will probably be using my gel pens and colored pencils or will purchase a second book if I feel compelled to use my markers. The binding is sewn in rather than glued, so removing the pages will take a few snips of the thread every ten pages or so.Many of the designs merge into the binding but as I won't be cutting the book itself, that isn't an issue if I take the book apart. For those who don't take the pictures out of the book, I was able to bend the binding enough to get the book fairly flat.The cities et al include: Camden, Baker Street (so cute and in the shape of Sherlock Holmes), Chimneys and Rooftops, Bruges, London Panorama, The Shard, Picaadilly Circus, The Great Wall of China, Mount Fuji, Luxor, Coverack, Old English Village, Eiffel Tower, Paris, Soho, Hyde Park, Little Moreton Hall, Tate Britain, The Globe, Stained Glass, Bridge through Town, Paris x 2, Cobbled Streets, Moulin Rouge, Goldsmiths, Tower Bridge, Tokyo, Charlottenburg Palace (Berlin), Portobello Road, Chatsworth, St. Pancras, International Space Station, Northern Lights, San Francisco, Seattle, Chinese Palace, Barcelona, The Colosseum, Syndey, Memphis, Stockholm, Venice, Abbey Road (cute riff on the album cover!), Tower of London, Stephen's Dome (Vienna), Waterfall, Archway, Chester, Medieval City, Red House (Bexleyheath), Ronda Spain, Malta, Castle on the Hill, Medieval Castle, New York x 2, Carcassonne France, Staircases, City Mirror, Moscow, St. Basil's Cathedral, Jardin Majorelle Marrakech, Amsterdam, Rio de Janeiro, Ischia Italy, Endinburg, Newcastle, and the Taj Mahal.

I've been following Peta Hewitt on YouTube to up my coloring game, and I've been using Inktense to try and paint the pictures. She's amazing at this and she's been using The Magical City to do demos. I loved the pictures she showed and wanted to do a color-along, so I ordered this. I was worried that it would be yet another book with bad paper (US versions tend to have much lower quality paper than the UK versions for whatever reason. See Lost Ocean as an example). This turns out to be the UK version and it is splendid. The paper is thick and holds color well, whether you're using water activated Inktense or premium pencils. The pictures are amazing and varied. Just spending time figuring out your colors will be a treat. It sure has for me.With so many books focusing on greens (Enchanted Forest and Secret Garden) it was lovely to get a book that used all the colors. Highly recommended!

While this is a very abstract interpretation of these city scapes, it is still really fun to color. At first I thought they were too messy and loosely drawn to have a satisfying finished result BUT this is not true! Once colored the perspective comes right out and the buildings take on a whimsical shape in a fun atmosphere. I also LOVE that a lot of the scenes are named on the pages in a very small inconspicuous place. I've googled some of the places. For example, Camden Lock. Being from the USA, I was not familiar with that but Google pulled up "Camden street" in London with a store front with "Camden Lock" on the front. Although she hasn't drawn the street in the exact order of the way the buildings are in real life, she's included enough actual elements that it makes it a very fun journey to color my way through it. I found some YouTube videos of a lady coloring her way through this book with inktense pencils and I've decided to do the same. Although the paper wrinkles with the water when you activate the inktense pencils, I am still able to do both sides without much bleed through (it's only in areas that I've scrubbed too much color and water into an area and even that is minimal). I'm just using less water. The slight wrinkle in the paper is to be expected since it isn't intended for water color but I am pleasantly surprised that I'm able to do both sides without ruining either page. At first glance this book did not seem like the drawings were really my style, having come from the Secret Garden series coloring books, but I've grown an appreciation for this different style of art work. I'm having a lot of fun and have recommended this coloring book to my other friends and daughters.

I love, love, love this book! Love the unique ideas the artist put together for this. This book has all hand drawn images, all beautifully done!The pages are double-sided, but that does not bother me any, as I don't use markers... Only gel pens colored pencils. The paper is very nice, definitely not too thin for my taste. I love all the images of different cities, it's a nice change from all the flowers & butterflies books.I LOVE how they're actual places, yet drawn in a manner that doesn't make me feel like I HAVE to color it realistically. I have yet to start coloring, but I CAN'T WAIT TO! I definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for something different & unique!

This artist has a unique hand, creating unique and entertaining coloring books. This book is my favorite and has cities from around the world in it. With the city names in small print on each one, I was able to look them up and get inspiration for color and tone. This artist gives us all a unique look at the world around us. Highly recommended!!