Velvet Art

Velvet Art is a really interesting variation on the idea of coloring in pictures. With Velvet Art the picture is set on a black fuzzy background. All the lines in the picture are this same black fuzzy material. This makes it very difficult to color outside the lines because the texture stops your marker. Velvet Art is therefore makes it possible for children to color very intricate pictures nicely. The images are designed to be a size and style that works nicely for posters once they are finished. In fact, several of the designs are beautiful in black and white as well.

The Velvet Art website claims that their products come packaged either with one full sized poster design or with two half sized designs. I must add a disclaimer to this. The full sized posters are, as advertised, one full sized poster per package. The "half sized" ones are not half the size of a full poster, though. They're a bit smaller, but they still look nice. They're also cheaper, so if you want to try this for the first time I recommend you try the smaller ones first. The other thing I must mention is that, while in the smaller pack you do get two "half sized" designs, only one of these designs is done with the velvet backing. The other is just a printed picture to color. They are very nice designs and they are printed on thicker paper so they will work beautifully as posters, but the second design is not velvet.

Each package, whether you buy the full or half sized version, comes with a small package of markers which can be used to color the picture. I have several comments about the markers themselves. First of all, they are very small. While this is probably wonderful for a child, as an adult I found them difficult to hold. Secondly, the caps do not fit the markers well. When I opened my package one of my markers was very close to being dry. It was still usable but it ran out of ink in very short order. Velvet Art does, however, provide a nice assortment of colors in their package and the markers come with their own plastic sleeve which makes them easy to carry around. When coloring, I often had little bits of the black fuzz get stick to the tip of my marker. While this doesn't effect how the marker works, it is annoying because the fuzz ends up coming off the marker elsewhere in the picture. However, I discovered that occasionally wiping the marker tips off on scrap paper or a paper towel does a great deal to keep this under control.

All in all I was fairly impressed with Velvet Art. The designs range from simple enough for any child to complete to complex enough to entertain an adult. They are reasonably priced and fairly easy to order online. I like that the finished product looks nice enough to be used as a poster. Overall I think Velvet Art is a wonderful art project for children of any age.