Fantastic Adult Coloring Books by Steve McDonald

Fantastic Structures Coloring Book Review

 Steve McDonald has done it again and again and again!

Steve’s latest book is entitled Fantastic Machines! The cover photo made me feel very nostalgic, it’s a pinball machine.

Fantastic Machines – A Coloring Book of Amazing Devices – Real & Imagined

Click to Order Amazon US, UK or Canada

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Fantastic Planet – A book of real and imagined places

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Fantastic Structures

We just received Steve’s new book Fantastic Structures and honestly, I like it better than the original? Why you ask? Well, it’s not QUITE as intimidating as Fantastic Cities and many of the iconic buildings in this one are near and dear to my heart.

“Steve McDonald applies his unique photo-based approach to create beautiful, detailed line drawings of amazing buildings and other structures from around the world in Fantastic Structures. The globetrotting selection includes buildings from six continents, including Prague’s Astronomical Clock, Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia, Antoni Gaudi’s Casa Batllo in Barcelona and dozens more, with fun-to-color detail sections from iconic structures like the Eiffel Tower, London Bridge, and the Chrysler Building. The pages are crisp and white, conducive to a range of artistic applications, and feature the illustrations at a uniquely large and immersive size, with a middle margin identifying the structures and keeping the artwork fully colorable on the page. A dozen imaginative architectural mandala illustrations also complement the amazing real structures in this gorgeous adult coloring book. I think you are going to fall in love with this one!

Click to Order Amazon US, UK or Canada

Katie Couric explores the Adult Coloring Book “Craze” for Yahoo News featuring Steve McDonald, creator of Fantastic Cities.

We are very excited that Mr. McDonald has decided to branch out from architecture in a new coloring book available to pre-order called Fantastic Collections!

Artist Steve McDonald uses his unique photo-based approach to create beautiful and intimately detailed line drawings of amazing collections of objects. Finding inspiration in the unusual (museum collections, antiques, and quirky toys) and the everyday (leaves, butterflies, vintage cameras, store product displays), McDonald creates playful and immersive illustrations that are as lovely as they are fun to color. The quality of the large, crisp white pages are conducive to a range of applications, while a middle margin keeps all the artwork fully colorable. A dozen meditative mandalas created from the drawings round out this gorgeous adult coloring book.”

In a  news story released September 2, 2015  by Katie Couric about Adult Coloring Books, Steve McDonald shared how reluctant he was to enter the coloring book arena with his art, considering himself a “real artist” who had his cityscapes in art galleries and commercial design projects paying the bills. Why create a coloring book?

In the interview, he credits his kids with getting him to put his unique detailed drawings into books for people to color in. Steve loves the idea that he is now collaborating with people and pulling them into part of the process with his art.

“Instead of just creating one piece and putting it on a gallery wall, each piece gets a life that’s far more extensive and far more lasting,” McDonald said. “The idea that I’m presenting these drawings to people all over the planet and asking them to finish the drawing with their own color, to me that’s incredibly exciting.” Source: Yahoo

As you can see with the cityscape samples below, these images are quite detailed and suitable for advanced colorists who enjoy Johanna Basford and Millie Marrota types of books but want some inorganic shapes to bring to life. This book would be a great way to get the men in your life to enjoy your coloring hobby ladies.

Steve McDonald has been humbled by the response and success of this new chapter in his art career

“I thought creating and producing something like a coloring book, maybe that was beneath me as an artist,” he said.  “I’ve come to realize that that was a silly opinion to have.”

About Fantastic Cities Coloring Book

Fantastic Cities measures 11 3/4th inch x 11 ¾” inch and is 29 pages with 58 illustrations on rich thick paper printed on both sides. Many of the images in the book are two-page spreads. You will need to take care with what type of art materials you chose to color in these books. Colored Pencils along with fine-tipped non-bleeding pens would be your best bet. If you prefer to use markers you could either pick and choose which pages you want to color the most or buy two books.. at only $9.50 a copy that is a pretty good buy.  

• Click to buy Fantastic Cities   US  ~  UK  ~  Canada
• Click to buy Fantastic Structures   US  ~  UK  ~  Canada
• Click to order Fantastic Collections   US  ~  UK  ~  Canada
• Fantastic Cities Coloring Poster Set (Pictured below) Only available in the US currently

Fantastic Cities Postcards by Steve McDonald

Steve McDonald – Fantastic Cities Free Pages to Download

Picadilly Circus, London
Manhattan, New York
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Ladakh, India
Tokyo, Japan
Paris, France
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Jodhpur, India
Bremen, Germany
San Francisco, California

Purchase Steve McDonald coloring books here:  US  ~  UK ~ Canada We recommend the same markers to color in this book as the Basford books

Staedtler Colored Pencils 

Great for high detailed coloring as these colored pencils sharpen them to a very fine point and they blend nicely. They have a coating around the led that produces less breakage than other pencils. Click here to Order

For larger areas of coloring where you don’t need the fine tips you might want to use the higher-quality artist colored pencils like Faber Castel Polychromos, Derwent, or PrismaColors  and for those tiny spots you might want to check out Prismacolor Verithins

. However many find that the cheaper Crayola colored pencils or our favorite budget pencil, Marco Raffines work just fine for them.

Staedtler Pigment Triplus Liners

Are wonderful for double-sided coloring markers because of their vibrant colors and narrow nibs. They won’t leak through the pages of your good quality coloring books and are recommended by Johanna Basford. Click to purchase Staedtler Triplus Fineliner Pens – look for the set with the stand-up case that is very handy for your coloring station at home or when you take them with you as well as keeping them protected.  There is a set of 36 but the reviews on Amazon say the additional colors aren’t very good or are repeats of these and for the price this box of 20 is a better purchase. The larger set also doesn’t come with their stand up box.

About the Author Steve McDonald

Steve McDonald doesn’t just draw the cities of the world. A lifelong traveler since his family moved to the Middle East in 1979, he’s lived in Saudi Arabia, Italy, India, and Indonesia, visited dozens of other countries, and spent the better part of two decades traveling his native Canada from coast to coast via car, bus, helicopter, canoe, ship, and on foot. Everywhere he goes he soaks up the local color, the architecture, and, most of all, the lines.

Steve’s process includes observing, sketching on-site, and taking photos for reference in the studio, as well as working from many noted photographers’ material. He lays down initial groundwork lines in pencil or on a tablet and then gets busy with the details. Although he works in many media, including acrylics, watercolors, and colored dyes, his favorite is simple pen and ink.

When he’s not knee-deep in the intricate details of his drawings, Steve is likely surfing (most recently in the waves off the coast of Bali, where he lived for two years with his family) or cross-country skiing in the snowdrifts of rural Ontario, which he currently calls home.

A graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design, Steve’s work has been showcased in many gallery exhibitions, television documentaries, and various publications, and can be found in many private homes and corporate collections worldwide.