The Bicycle Coloring Book - Journey to the Edge of the World

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I would never have thought a coloring book about the journey of a bicycle (without rider) and a cat would become one of my favorite coloring books. The Bicycle Coloring Book has grabbed my attention with the beautiful presentation and layout of the book, and the imaginative illustrations contained within it.

Cover & Layout

Unlike most coloring books for adults the Bicycle Coloring Book has been printed in a landscape format. The book measures approximately 21cm x 27cm (8 1/4 in x 10 3/4 in) approximately). On the left side of the book, the book has been covered in a red, lightly textured tape type material. It reminds me somewhat of book binding and legal tape. It wraps around the side of the book, giving it an impression of sturdiness. The balance of the cover contains a partially colored image from the book. Looking closely at the image you will get a sense of the artistic style. There’s a bike, but also a rocket, an astronaut, a cat on the bike and a crouching tiger ….wow!

The title has been printed in white and gold foil highlights.

The cover folds out to show the full image. The inside cover is aqua and does not contain any line art.

You know a book is quirky when the title page is a cat drawing a bike!

The bike journey throughout the world, has been printed on one side of the paper. On the reverse an image of a cat has been printed. A lot of thought has gone into this imagery (and I would love to have the patience to do it myself). Over the various pages the cat changes poses, gets a ball and more and then the “cat story” ends with just the ball. If you flip through on the left hand side you will see that it is part flip book of the cat and part coloring book. I love this sort of interactivity. It is clever and elegant.

The paper feels like a thin cardstock. It is white, smooth and very good quality.

Illustrations

The illustrations depict the journey of a bike, without a rider, around the world. The cat accompanies the bike throughout the journey and ends up in some funny places. The artist, Shan Jiang, has managed to take this bike through the streets of the city, under water, over mountains, on top of skyscrapers, the circus, space and of course, the countryside.

All of the illustrations have a thin border framing them and they have been nicely centered on the page.

The illustrations finish about .05 cm from the spine of the book giving the colorist room to color near the binding of the book. The book does lay down flat, but because of its size you do need to be very forceful.

The outlines have been drawn in black with some solid black used in images. The line work is fine and delicate throughout and additional shadowing and texture has been added by the artist. If I had one niggle, it would be that some of the lines are visually too fine for me to see easily. For this book, however, I have no qualms in cranking up my magnifying lamp to see the detail.

gorgeous detail

Bonus

There are two beautiful fold out posters within the book, complete with a colored image on the reverse.

The fold out is too big for my camera!

Shan Jiang has completed illustrations before for a bike magazine, I believe. Online, there are many colored versions of his art. His artwork is so amazingly vibrant, with a poster and urban street art look that is beautiful.