Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Creative Cat: Pattern, Doodle, Color with a Muse
Coloring Book
For ages 7 and up
Laurence King Publishing, 2016 ISBN: 978-1780678474
Artists find sources of inspiration all around them. They find it in nature, in throbbing cities full of people, and even in their own homes. In this wonderful coloring book, artist David Sinden has been inspired to create a varied collection of doodles all of which feature a cat. In each doodle the cat character will be your muse, your artistic guide. The artist encourages us to “follow” the cat “adding patterns, doodles, and color to fill the pages.” We are invited to “Be playful and, most of all, enjoy.”
On some of the pages, artists are given prompts, which help them get started if they need a little nudge. For example, on the first page we see a doodle of a cat and the image has been created using lots of curls and swirls. We are asked to “Continue my tail, fill the page with curls,” and as there is lots of white space available, the tail can grow very long indeed if we want.
The second cat is made up of hearts. We are asked to “Add more hearts around me” and then we can reveal the cat amongst the hearts by adding color.
The third feline is in a playful pose, and is clearly preparing to bat at the ball of yarn in front of it. The image of the cat was made using circles of all kinds and we are asked to add more circles to the page.
The ball of yarn slowly unravels from page to page, carrying us forward to have adventures with our little feline friend. The prompts appear less often as we follow the yarn from design to design until we come to the end of the yarn and our creative journey ends “with a flourish.”
This singular coloring book will delight young (and not so young) artists, and hopefully it will inspire them to create their own doodles.
