There’s a reason we don’t see the world in black and white.

Let’s take that literally because colors are beautiful, therapeutic, and make our souls happy. It adds meaning to things and life around us. It affects our mood, expresses our feelings, and balances our emotions.

We all first encountered coloring books when we were children. It gave us the freedom to choose whatever color we like to use on each drawing. It helped develop our fine motor skills, hand-and-eye coordination, color awareness, discipline, patience, and a lot more.

Color By Number For Adults, Beneficial?

The good benefits are not limited to kids alone. As adults, doing coloring artwork has been known to relax the brain, reduce stress and anxiety, improves focus, promotes creativity, and so on. Since adult skills and preferences vary, there are also different kinds of adult coloring books available.

Read more about the benefits of adult coloring.

With regular coloring books, the colorless pictures give us the freewill to choose whatever hue we’d like to use to create a masterpiece. Some adults thrive on this option as experimenting on different shades can be exciting. On the other hand, there are adults who prefer to make coloring easy for them so there’s less thinking about mixing and matching tints. This is where “color by numbers” come into place.

Color by number books for adults are made to make easy artistic works without losing the fun. All the regions to be colored out are properly labeled with numbers and we simply need to shade them following the color palette provided by the book. Easy, isn’t it?

The joy comes in once we see that our design has been finished. There is this sense of accomplishment right after seeing the last numbered shape has been shaded out. It sends that amazing and relaxing feeling as soon as we complete a page that easily.

Coloring Supply Options

We, personally, love using markers when coloring as they can create extremely vibrant colors. We’ve tested all the major brands and have information on the best markers for coloring.

If you are less experienced or maybe want to avoid potential issues such as markers bleeding through the pages, you may want to look into the best colored pencils for coloring. Colored pencils will not be as vibrant as markers, however they will still provide a beautiful, softer color that some people prefer.

Finally, if you want to get extremely creative, you can try out some of the best gel pens on the market. Gel pens have less ink but produce vibrant colors as well as giving you access to glitter and other neat effects.

Any of the options above will work, so choose which works best for you and just start coloring!

The Best Coloring Books

We did a search for the best color by number books for adults and here’s what we’ve found:

 

Brain Games – Color by Number: Stress-Free Coloring

Brain Games released three different color by number books for this series – green, pink, and orange. They all offer a variety of 27 images per book that are all spiral-bound.

The pages are made with good quality, thick paper wherein all the images are printed only on one side of the page. You may use coloring pencils, crayons, or markers without worrying that it may bleed through.

Each page has a maximum of 6 colors to use. It may appear limited but this is a good start since having more than 10 colors to use may appear too much to handle. If you are more playful on your color choices, you have the option to upgrade your palette options.

The colors to be used on each drawing has no label or name. You have to match the color of your coloring tool with the swatch color on each page. In case you can't tell one color from another, look at the full-color illustrations at the end of the book.

Perforated pages make it easy to cut out a favorite page that you want to put on display or show off to your friends and family. You can also share it with them.

There are also a lot of different images in each coloring book. There are simple drawings, and there are also more complicated images that may take a long time to finish, but they are both important. Each picture also has some color already in it.

8.5 by 0.5 by 10 inches.

64

Colorful images for all: 27

Jade Summer – Color by Number: Patterns

The Jade Summer coloring book set has a lot of different color by number books in it. There is a book called "Patterns" that has been the most popular in the series so far. This is a large-print, paperback coloring book that can be used by anyone. There are 50 different full-page illustrations with different shapes and patterns that are easy for kids to color.

The book has 30 colors that you can use. It has its own page with a color key, and each one is marked with the correct name. It's possible that different people use different coloring tools (crayons, pencils, or markers), so they also included a blank color swatch that you can use as you make your own palette guide. For some people, having only a few coloring pens might make it hard to finish some of the color requirements.

Each drawing is printed on one side of the page with a black back portion to help stop any bleed through if you use markers on your pages. This will help keep your pages clean. To make sure your work doesn't mess up the next page, you should still put a piece of scrap paper under your color work.

The book is 8.5 x 0.26 x 11 inches.

113

All the pictures you can color in all: 50.

Creative Haven – Color by Number: Mandalas and Sea Life

The word "mandala" means circle. These are patterns that are linked together in a way that looks like a circle or a spiral. They are often used to show unity and harmony. Adults who like to color can often choose Mandalas because they show a lot of detail and balance with all the things they use.

In the Mandalas Color By Number book by Creative Haven, there are 46 beautiful designs to color. Printed on one side of the page: each picture is on the other side of the page. Use art markers in the best way possible by putting an extra sheet under the page you are working on to keep the next page from bleeding. There are holes on each page, but be careful when you need to take them out of the book. You could accidentally tear up your work.

If you buy this adult coloring book, it is printed and labeled correctly. There are 24 different colors to choose from. Do this: Take 24 colors from your coloring pencils or markers and set them aside so they match the colors in the palette you are going to use. It's also possible to make your own color key.

Because mandalas are known for having small details, sharpen your colored pencils well. If you prefer to use markers, fine tips are very useful for shading these small areas, so be sure to use them. It might be hard to read the number labels on these parts, too! To avoid getting mixed up with certain numbers, a magnifying glass can be a good thing to keep in your purse or pocket.

The book is 8.2 x 0.4 x 10.8 inches.

96

All the pictures for you to color in: 46

Life in the sea

This book lets you color in all kinds of things under the sea. Sketches of different fish, corals, and other marine animals will be printed on just one side of high-quality paper.

There are also 24 colors in this book that need to be used. The color palette is shown on the inside of the front cover, along with a few thumbnails of the colored illustrations that are shown there as well (the rest are at the back cover).

Because these drawings are full-page ones, there will be a lot of big and small areas to color. Even seasoned artists might find these drawings fun to color. Older people may have a hard time with some numbers because they look so small. There are times when a magnifying glass can be a good thing to have.

They're also great if you want to separate your book pages so that you can color them individually, put them on display, or give them as a gift.

The book is 8.2 x 0.3 x 10.9 inches.

96

All the pictures for you to color in: 46

Joe Bartos – Mystery Colors: Color By Number & Discover the Magic

In this color by number book, you won't find your typical coloring book. Illustrator Joe Bartos added a little challenge to each design he made. You can only see the real picture when you are in the middle of coloring or when you are almost done. This Mystery Colors book is true to its name in that it has a surprise for each page that you work on.

People, animals, landscapes, and famous landmarks are just a few of the things you can find in Mystery Colours.

Good quality, thick paper is used to print the full-page pictures. All of the paper is perforated so that you can easily remove them. In this book, the fun facts are only printed on one side, so they were printed on both sides. This gives you a clue as to what to color on the next page. They're great for colored pencils and art markers, so they're ideal.

During the whole book, there will be 20 colors, but each picture will only need 10 colors. This is at the bottom of each picture. Just choose the color that looks good with your pens because it doesn't have a specific color name. You can also look at the back of the book to see how the colors are made, but that will ruin the mystery of the picture.

The book is 8.5 by 0.5 by 10.88 inches.

96

Images for coloring: more than 40

Sunlife Drawing – Color By Number: Animal Stencils and Mosaic Style

There are a lot of great animals to color. They are a part of our world, and most people can agree that their presence can also make us feel more at ease. As for art, there are many ways to make them your own.

Stencil with animals on it

A coloring book called Animal Stencils by Sunlife Drawing adds another dimension to their number-guided coloring books. There are 30 stencils of animals that are very well done. They are printed on a black and white background at the same time. The black background makes the colors stand out and make the whole thing look more lively.

There are 22 colors that must be used to finish the whole coloring book. You can try out your own pens in the beginning of the book. In this case, each color name has a number next to it, so you can choose the shade you want.

All drawings are printed on one side of the page, and there is a consistent black page on the other side to keep colored markers from bleeding over to the other side of the page. Note that these black pages behind each drawing also have number labels on them to show which colors to use for the next picture. To figure out which color goes with which number, you don't have to flip back and forth through the book.

Inside this book, there are 30 different animals that you can see: a bunny and bear. There are also sea horses and leopards in this book. There are also snails, a dog and snails, a dog and dog, and snails, a dog and dog. There are also camels, deer and wolves in this book. There are also horses, owls and turtles.

The book is 8.5 x 0.19 x 11 inches.

During the whole process, there were 80 pages.

All of the images that can be colored are 22.

It's called a "animal mosaic."

Color by number books of animals from Sunlife Drawing also come in mosaic form. Each figure looks like a cathedral glass window, with thick spaces in between the sections of glass. All of them are printed on a single side, white page, and just like the stencil version, they have a black back page to help with any ink that might get on it from markers. As a good rule of thumb when using markers, put an extra sheet of paper under your page to keep it safe.

Beautiful animal drawings are in this book. You'll need 22 colors to finish your project, and there are 25 in this book. All of the 22 colors are marked next to the page you are working on, making it easier to find them. The pages aren't cut, by the way.

Make the white parts of the picture gold or silver before you shade them. These may help keep any extra ink from your alcohol marker from spreading, so your work doesn't look bad at the end of the project, too. Before shading the inside of the shape, make sure to follow the outline of the shape.

People of all ages will enjoy this book because the shapes and numbers are easy to read.

The book is 8.5 x 0.15 x 11 inches.

64

To color, there are 25 pictures.

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